Abstract
The present study analyses plant diversity and evaluates the relationship between edaphic variables and the distribution and grouping of plant species in the Aswan Reservoir area, South Egypt. The dominant families were Fabaceae, Poaceae, and Asteraceae, forming 38.82% of the total flora recorded. The main bulk of the flora recorded (50.59%) belonged to the cosmopolitan, neotropical, pantropical, and palaeotropical chorotypes. A TWINSPAN analysis produced 10 vegetation clusters. Inundation levels showed a high correlation with species richness. The seasonally inundated area in Bute El-Hasaya and Maezana Belal (cluster V) had the highest species richness (36.50), while the lowest species richness (4.50) was in the shoreline of Philae, Awad, and Heisa islands (cluster IX). The DCA ordination depicted the environmental gradient expressed by the cluster analysis, and the resulting vegetation groups represented a distinct microhabitat. The CCA ordination indicates that the separation of vegetation group (A) along the axis was affected by the concentration of K, Mg, and CO3, and the vegetation group (B) was significantly associated with the total dissolved salts and the concentration of Cl. Moreover, the vegetation group (C) correlated significantly with pH, electrical conductivity, organic matter content, and SO3, HCO3, PO4, Na, and Ca concentrations.
Highlights
Damming changes hydrological regimes quickly and alters aquatic environments leading to habitat fragmentation, sediment transport, and species migration in regulated rivers [1,2]
Pearson’s linear correlation coefficient [r] was used to assess the relationship of the measured edaphic variables among the vegetation assemblages, using SPSS program Version-20 [86]. This investigation provided recent information on habitat variation and vegetation structure in relation to edaphic factors in the Aswan Reservoir area, a lake between two dams in upper Egypt. It highlighted the importance of edaphic variables, water fluctuations, topographic diversity, and prolonged human interference in explaining plant diversity in the study area
The key elements of the edaphic factors for each microhabitat may be helpful in the conservation of the Aswan reservoir ecosystem
Summary
Damming changes hydrological regimes quickly and alters aquatic environments leading to habitat fragmentation, sediment transport, and species migration in regulated rivers [1,2]. It increases the residence time of water in reservoirs and the surface area receiving solar radiation and decreases the wetland area below the dam [3]. Wetlands are ecologically important due to their hydrologic attributes and role as ecotones between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems They function as downstream recipients of water and waste from natural and human sources and have often been transformed into drylands for agriculture and human settlements [6]. Several exotic species introduced in different ways are stabilized and naturalized [8]
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