Variations in Vegetation Structure, Species Dominance and Plant Communities in South of the Eastern Desert-Egypt

Fawzy Salama,Mohamed Gadallah,Ahmed Amro,Monier Abd El-Ghani,Salah El-Naggar

doi:10.15835/nsb619191

Fawzy Salama, Mohamed Gadallah + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.15835/nsb619191

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Abstract

For two successive years, the floristic diversity and vegetation composition in the southern part of the Eastern Desert ofEgypt were investigated through four transects (3 crossing the Eastern Desert and one along the Red Sea). The data collected from 142 stands covering the study area included the species composition, functional groups, chorology and occurrences (Qvalues). A total of 94 plant species belonging to 33 different families were recorded, with Asteracea, Zygophyllaceae, Fabaceae,Poaceae, Chenopodiaceae and Brassicaceae as the largest families. Shrubs represented the largest functional group (39.4%), while perennial herbs represented the smallest ones (12.8%). Species occurrence (Q-value) revealed that Zilla spinosa, Acacia tortilis subsp raddiana, Morettia philaeana, Caroxylon imbricatum, Zygophyllum coccineum and Citrullus colocynthis had wide ecological range of distribution (dominant species, Q-values 0.2). Saharo-Arabian chorotype was highly represented (72.6 %) in the flora of this area, eventually as mono, bi or pluriregional. Classification of the data set yielded 7 vegetation groups included: (A) Zilla spinosa-Morettia philaeana, (B1) Zilla spinosa-Citrullus colocynthis-Morettia philaeana, (B2) Zilla spinosa, (C1)Zygophyllum album-Tamarix nilotica, (C2) Zygophyllum coccineum-Tamarix nilotica, (D1) Zilla spinosa-Zygophyllum coccineum and (D2) Zilla spinosa-Acacia tortilis subsp. raddiana-Tamarix aphylla-Balanites aegyptiaca. Certain vegetation groups were assigned to one or more transects. Detrended Correspondence Analysis (DCA) revealed that electrical conductivity, sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, chlorides, moisture content, sulphates, pH, organic matter and gravel were the soil variables that affect the species distribution in this study.

Highlights

The Eastern Desert of Egypt occupies about 223,000 km2, i.e. 21% of the total area of Egypt
The classification and ordination analyses proposed that the vegetation of the study area can be divided into 7 major vegetation groups
It can be noted that certain vegetation groups characterized one or more of the studied transects; group (A) in Idfu-Mersa Alam transect (T2), groups (B1), (B2) and (D2) in Aswan-Kharit-Gimal transct (T3), groups (C1) and (C2) in Qusier-Safaga transect along Red Sea coast (T4), and group (D1) was widely distributed in the study area including T1, T2 and T4

Summary

Introduction

The Eastern Desert of Egypt occupies about 223,000 km, i.e. 21% of the total area of Egypt. The vegetation composition and plants distribution covering the Egyptian Eastern Desert and Red Sea coast such as in the northern inland part (Abd El-Ghani, 1998; Fossati et al, 1998), in Wadi Allaqi (Sheded et al, 2012), in Wadi Degla (Hegazy et al, 2012), in Wadi Gimal (Galal and Fahmy, 2011; Gomaa, 2012), in Wadi Natash (Suzan et al, 2013) and in central Eastern Desert (Abd El-Ghani et al, 2013a; Salama and El-Naggar, 1991; Salama and Fayed, 1990; Salama et al, 2012, 2013) have been studied This desert is characterized by two main units, the Red Sea costal land and the inland desert. It is a rocky plateau dissected by a number of wadis; each has a main channel with numerous tributaries

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