Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 6.2
Mountain centres of plant diversity (CPD) in the Mediterranean
Location
Plant species
Threats
Baetic and Sub-Baetic
Mountains, Spain
c. 3000 plants
Forest fires, pollution, tourist
development
Gudar and Javalambre
massifs Spain
c. 1500 plants
Tourism development
Pyrenees
c. 3000 plants, 200 endemic
Tourism, erosion
Southern and central
Greek mountains
c. 4000 plants
Fire, grazing
Crete*
c. 1600 plants, 10% endemic*
Fire, tourism, agriculture
Troodos, Cyprus
1650 plants, 62 endemic
Fire, road-building
Levantine uplands
c. 4160 plants, c. 635
Logging, agriculture, urbanization
High Atlas, Morocco
c. 1000 plants: 160 endemics
confined to the high
mountain zone
Population pressure,
overexploitation of resources
Isaurian, Lycaonian and
Cilician Taurus, Turkey
c. 2500 plants, 235 endemic
Agriculture, tourism, exotic
species
BasedondatafromDavis
et al.
(1994).
*CPD and figures include the mountain massifs of the island
temperatures, temperature extremes, prevalence of winds and the very short grow-
ing season (Tivy, 1993). The main functional types in these zones include tussock-
forming grasses, low-stature shrubs, mat-forming graminoids, legumes with
N-fixing symbionts, and rosette-forming, non-legume herbs (Nagy
et al.,
2003).
Invertebrates exhibit similar patterns, that is they decrease in number as well as
body mass as the altitude increases. In recent years mountain chains have been
places of discovery of both plants - such as
Horistrisea dolinicola
(Egli, 1991) in
the Psiloritis mountain of Crete - and invertebrates - such as the carabid beetle
Relictocarabus meurguesae
in the High Atlas of Morocco (Blondel
et al.,
2010).
The predominant plant lifeforms, hemicryptophytes and chamaephytes, reflect the
harsh environmental conditions dominating in these altitudes.
At the end of the Pliocene, Mediterranean mountain vegetation showed similari-
ties to that of the present day. According to Pignatti (1978), in the largest moun-
tains surrounding the Mediterranean (Alps, Pyrenees, Atlas), deciduous forests
dominated by beeches and oaks were replaced by evergreen forest at higher alti-
tudes; open coniferous communities (with pines, firs and cedars) were also present,
whereas spiny shrub formations dominated the higher mountain slopes and sum-
mits (for a discussion of the Quaternary see Chapter 2). Today the Mediterranean
is characterized by vegetation types such as forests, open woodlands, maquis, gar-
rigue, phrygana and steppe. Most of these categories occur in an altitudinal zona-
tion, following a gradient from the lowlands to the alpine zone that demonstrates
a decrease in structural complexity of vegetation cover. In addition there are many
azonal habitats - products of the geology, hydrology and their interaction that host
a variety of important communities and species.
