New Records and Endemic Taxa Revealed in The Novel Checklist of Alexandria Flora: Implications for Conservation Prioritization

Abstract

Little is still known about the composition and distribution of vegetation in the Mediterranean region, especially urban flora, and vegetation. Until recently, regional -scale ecological and evolutionary patterns of urban areas have tended to be ignored, as conservation efforts have been concerned mostly with species and their habitats. A combination of social, ecological experiences and direct field observations were carried out to record the plant taxa that are found in the urban areas of Alexandria city. The present study represents the first work to explore a recently neglected urban flora. In this study, we identified plant taxa and life forms from a typical natural site with different anthropogenic activities to assess the status of the vegetation type. 338 plant species (including the inferaspecific taxa) were recorded in the study area, most of them were therophytes (50%), and about 19 % are cultivated for ornamentals purposes or as crops. Only three endemic taxa were recorded in the studied urban habitat: Anthemis microsperma, Sonchus macrocarpus,and Thesium humile var. maritima, while 91 (26.9%) alien taxa were recorded, out of which six were invasive, and seven were recorded for the first time in the present study, three of them are considered new record species: Nicotiana glutinosa L., Sesuvium portulacastrum (L.) L. and Commelina erecta L.