Analysis of the flora of Dagestan: 1. Taxonomical and biomorphological structures

The article presents some results of the inventory of the flora of Dagestan with taxonomic and biomorphological analyses. This work was based mainly on the studies carried out in the preparation of the Conspectus of the Dagestan flora. The study of natural flora during numerous expeditions and the analysis of published works on the flora of Dagestan also played a certain role. The work was carried out for the period 1994–2021, during which about 600 expeditions were organized in different regions of Dagestan. In addition, to clarify the species composition, the most important Herbariums, where collections from Dagestan are stored, were viewed.

The conducted studies have revealed that currently 3496 species belonging to 165 families are growing on the territory of Dagestan. 113 (3.23% of the total flora) of those species are introduced or naturalized into the natural environment. In Dagestan flora there are 16 large families with more than 50 species, which include 2529 species, what makes more than 72%. The first group consists of the Asteraceae family with 468 species (13.38% of the total number of species), Poaceae with 370 taxa (10.58%), and Fabaceae with 245 (7.01%). A distinctive feature of leading families range of the Dagestan flora, in contrast to other North Caucasian floras, is the high position of the Chenopodiaceae family and the presence of the Orchidaceae family in this group. There are 876 genera in the flora of Dagestan, 30 of them are leading ones with 20 or more species, what in total makes 26.46% (925 species) of the entire flora.

An analysis of the life forms of Dagestan flora species showed that the main predominant group is hemicryptophytes (Hk). This group includes 1954 species, which is about 56% of the total species composition. The second place in terms of the number of species is occupied by terophytes (T) with 841 species (24.06%). The next largest group of species is the group of cryptophytes (K), which includes 295 species (8.44%). Slightly fewer species belong to fanerophytes (Ph) - 278 species (7.95%), and the least represented in the flora are chamephytes (128 species), which makes only 3.66%. A distinctive feature of Dagestan in terms of the ratio of life forms is that as you move from west to east within the North Caucasus, a decrease in the proportion of hemicryptophytes is observed. In the flora of Karachay-Cherkessia, they make up about 65%, and in Dagestan they are only 56%. A decrease in the proportion of hemicryptophytes from west to east occurs with a simultaneous increase in the proportion of terophytes. In Karachay-Cherkessia they make up 16.89% of the flora, in Kabardino-Balkaria - 17.24%, in Chechnya - 22.7%, and in Dagestan almost a quarter of the flora - 24%.

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