IranVeg – the Vegetation Database of Iran: current status and the way forward

By

Ramzi, Soghra
Noroozi, Jalil
Gholizadeh, Hamid
Hamzeh'ee, Behnam
Asri, Younes
Talebi, Amir
Moradi, Halime
Mahdavi, Parastoo
Tamjidi Eramsadati, Seyedeh Saeedeh
Zarezadeh, Somayeh
Kamrani, Asghar
Esmailzadeh, Omid
Ghorbanalizadeh, Atefeh
Bashirzadeh, Maral
Jalili, Adel
Sharifi, Jaber
Moradi, Aiuob
Bidarlord, Mahmoud
Siadati, Soudeh
Lotfi, Sajad
Attar, Farideh
Darzi, Maedeh Mohammadpour
Gorji, Zeynab Kazemi
Ghasemi, Sharyan
Dehghani, Mehdi
Rahmanian, Soroor
Esmailpoor, Ali
Sanaei, Anvar
Ghafari, Sahar
Ashouri, Parvaneh
Ali, Arshad
Dehghani, Abdolrahman
Hosseini, Somayeh
Hamedani, Hajar
Tirgan, Samereh
Maghsoudi, Mohaddeseh
Daneshi, Aliakbar
Eshaghi Rad, Javad
Eslami, Mohammadreza
Ramezani, Mahdis
Mehrabi, Zahra
Naqipour, Zahra
Naseri, Nadia
Bahari, Hossein
Ashouri, Maryam
Vasefi, Narges
Seyedakhlaghi, Seyed Abbas
Ejtehadi, Hamid
Farzam, Mohammad
Mokhtari, Somayeh
Djamali, Morteza
Ramezani, Elias
Zare, Habib
Masudian, Nahid
Alinejad, Raheleh
Kasiri, Mojdeh
Hosseini, Mahboubeh Sadat
Raeisi, Masoumeh
Ravanbakhsh, Hooman
Essl, Franz
Jalilvand, Hamid
Abedi, Mehdi
Bahalkeh, Khadijeh
Naqinezhad, Alireza

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2024-12-19

Original Publication

Vegetation classification and survey

Volume

5

Pages

237--256

Subjects

Biodiversity , Iran , macroecology , Phytogeography , Phytosociology , relevé , Southwest Asia , vegetation-plot database

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia Pensoft Publishers 2020-

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/VCS.114081

 

Abstract

Iran, situated in Southwest Asia, showcases a diverse landscape, including three phytogeographical regions and two global biodiversity hotspots. This diversity is attributed to its intricate geology, mountainous terrain, wide altitudinal range, and heterogeneous climate, fostering a rich flora characterized by a significant proportion of endemism. We present an updated version of the Vegetation Database of Iran (IranVeg) (GIVD ID AS-IR-001), comprising 13,411 plots spanning six major habitat types. These encompass deciduous forests (18.0%), woodlands and shrublands (5.6%), steppes and other grasslands (52.0%), saline depressions (9.3%), wetlands (12.2%), and anthropogenic habitats (2.9%), derived from 100 published and unpublished resources, comprising 3,919 plant species, belonging to 961 genera and 147 families. The vegetation data of Iran have been assigned to 31 valid and invalid phytosociological classes. The oldest plots were recorded in 1936 in the Alborz Mountains in northern Iran, while more than 60% of all plots were collected after 2010. Plot sizes vary from less than 1 m2 to 10,000 m2 with the highest species richness of 101 species recorded in a 25 m2 montane grassland plot. IranVeg stands as the first national vegetation database in Iran, promising valuable insights into biodiversity patterns and facilitating the assessment of future environmental and anthropogenic changes. It remains open to further development through a collaborative network of vegetation scientists. This comprehensive database holds significant potential for advancing vegetation classification and survey efforts in Iran and beyond.<br> Taxonomic reference: World Flora Online (WFO 2024).