Abstract: Salok protected Area is located in the 37° 15' to 37° 08' of the North latitude and 57° 16' to 57° 06' of East longitude, in West North Esfarayen in North khorassan province. In this research 52 families, 174 genera and 213 species were identified. The largest plant family is Asteraceae (34 species), Poaceae (18 species), Brassicaceae (17 species) and Fabaceae (17 species), respectively. Chief life forms are Hemicryptopytes (49.29%), Therophytes 23.47% and cryptophytes (12.67%). The most of plants chorotype with 62.91% is influenced by Irano-Touranina elements. Among 213 identified species of this region and 15 species endemic of Iran contain 0.87% of total endemic species of Iran's flora.
INTRODUCTION
Recognize is introduction for every research. Study plant biodiversity is important for optimum using of plant species in the different fields such as Ecology, Agriculture, Medicine and many other aims that make life on earth possible and enjoyable.
As, man or other factors are effective on survive and distribution of plant species also study floristic need in different region of Iran to protect our natural habitat in the long term. Due to protect regions have special important. Therefore, we are studied the flora of Salok protected area in North Khorassan.
The beginning travel for floristic study in Iran can be dated to 1684 when Kaempfer (1651-1716) coming to the southern Caucasus, Esfahan, Shiraz and Golf coast. He gathered a large collection of plants this area and transferred them to British Museum (Mood, 2008). Then, several European botanists and amateur plant collectors studied flora of Iran and collected plant species (Mood, 2008).
The important flora of oriental is flora Iranica. This flora have been published the since 1963 by Rechinger, (1963-2005). Other flora of Iran are flora orient ales (Boissier, 1810-1885), flora of Iran (Parsa, 1950), flora of Iran (Assadi et al., 1988-2008) and Colorful flora of Iran (Ghahraman, 1979-1998).
Very little has been published on the plant communities of North Khorasan. Salok protected Area (Miri, 2003), Khorassan vegetation (Mohasel et al., 1992).
In this research, a part of species in the Salok protected Area are collected, identified and nomenclature.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
In this research, plant species were collected of Salok protected Area during two years (2007-2009). Salok with and area of 170 km2 is located West North of Esfarayen in North Khorassan province a the 57° 16' to 57° 6' Eastern latitude and 37° 15' to 37° 8' Northern longitude with an altitude of 1812 m.
The climate is arid and semiarid. According to available data from the nearest climatic station in Asadly during 1983- 2009, the average rain full is 332.5 mm. The mean maximum temperature of the warmest month (August) is 20.33°C and the mean minimum temperature of the coldest month (February) is -1.46 Plants were collected in growing season from May to November.
In order to investigation the flora of Salok at first related information such as: Meteorological statistics, Topographic maps were gathered. Specimens were collected using normal random collecting method. Florestic list of Salok protected area is provided. Life- form and chorology of plants are determined. The geological
position was registered using GPS for collecting locations. The plants were pressed, dried and transferred to herbarium of department of the environment of North Khorassan province then they were identified using available flora.
All identification specimens are labeled in according to time, place, geographical latitude, longitude and altitude of the habitat of plants and with the name of Family, species. The life form of plant species was determined using the Raunkier’s method (Raunkier, 1934) and the endemic specimens with their character of IUCN (Jalili and Jamzad, 1999).
Chorology of each species was determined by using distribution data in floras. Spectrum of life-form and also geographical plant distribution were shown in Fig. 1 and 2.
| Fig. 1: | Life form spectrum of plants in Salok region (He: Hemicryptophytes, Th: Therophytes, Cr: Cryptophytes, Ch: Chemaephytes, Ph: Phanerophytes) |
| Fig. 2: | Chorological types spectrum in flora Salok region (IT: Irano-Turanian, ES: Euro-Siberian, SS: Sahara-Sindian, Cosm: Cosmopolitan, M: Mediterranean) |
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In this study a total number of 213 species has been identified belong to 174 genera and 52 families. In appendix of the paper achecklist of all species collected in Salok protected area is shown with information about their life forms and chorological types (Table 1).
Collection species are belong to Angiosperm expect two genera Juniperus excellsa and Equisetum ranosissmum. Among identified families of Angiospermae, six families are monocotelydole and other belong to dicotyledonous.
The most important and biggest families are Asteraceae (34 species), Poaceae (18 species), Brassicaceae (17 species), Fabaceae (17 species), Apiaceae (13 species), Lamiaceae (11 species) and Liliaceae (10 species).
In this research, we obtain the percentages of life forms phanerophytes 5.16%, chamaephytes 9.38%, hemicryptophytes 49.29%, therophytes 23.47%, cryptophytes 12.67% of the flora of the area.
Based on the life form spectrum of the Salok had a more proportion hemicryptophytes and therophytes. According to Arcihold (1995) the frequency of Hemicryptophyte plants is due to cold and to altitude climate. Hemicryptophytes can be survived by their buds. that they laied below and near soil surface or in the dried rosette leaves at soil surface. The high proportion of therophytes in the Salok protected Area show the arid condition of summer and the cold winter (Memariani et al., 2009). This points an effective strategy for them survive. Therophytes complete their life cycle during favorable season and survive in the form of seed. Due to shortage of humidity and water (Rooyen et al., 1990). The results represent a semi-arid climate. Therefore, the geographical distribution of plant species depending on life condition of area and adaption of plants to area (Asri, 2003).
The low percentage of Phanerophyte, Chamaephyte and Cryptophyte shows that they are not adapted to climate and edaphically situations area.
A considerable number of species (62.91%) belong to Irano-Turanian (IT). Other percentages of chorology are IT-ES (12.20%), Cosm (9.38%), ES (3.28%), M-IT (7.51%), E-M-IT (2.34%) M, IT-SS-M, IT-ES-M each one 0.46%, IT-SS 0.93%.
According to analysis of phytogeographical has shown that the most species belong to Irano-Touranian floral element.
Data point out correlation between climate, plant cover and chorology. Only 15 species were endemic of Iran are identified (Table 2). Total endemic species of Iran are 1727(Jalili and Jamzad, 1999), then the results show 0.86 % of endemic species related to the Iran's flora.
| Table 1: | List of species, life form and phytocorya from Salok protected area |
| Table 2: | Endemic taxa in the flora of salok area |
VU: Vulnerable, LR: Lower risk, DD: Data deficien | |
This study was the first research in protected Slaok region therefore we cannot able to compare with the pervious study.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank Dr. M. Shahriary and gratefully from M.Joharchi and Dr.F.Memariani for identification some plant speciments. Also thanks to Z. Talebzadeh, A. Sobhani, F. Razi, Dr. M.Samadi kazemi and Department of environment of north Khorassan for support to carry out this research.