An Outline of the Vegetation of Dubai (UAE) 77-95 an Outline of the Vegetation of Dubai (UAE)
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ZOBODAT - www.zobodat.at Zoologisch-Botanische Datenbank/Zoological-Botanical Database Digitale Literatur/Digital Literature Zeitschrift/Journal: Verhandlungen der Gesellschaft für Ökologie Jahr/Year: 1996 Band/Volume: 25_1996 Autor(en)/Author(s): Deil Ulrich, Müller-Hohenstein Klaus Artikel/Article: An outline of the vegetation of Dubai (UAE) 77-95 An outline of the vegetation of Dubai (UAE) Ulrich Deil & Klaus Müller-Hohenstein* Synopsis ignorant of the vegetation in the Arabian Peninsula«. After an introduction to the physical environment of The recently published Atlas of the United Arab Emi Dubai, the vegetation is described by transects and rates (= UAE) (UAE UNIVERSITY 1993) offers no tables. Plant communities are characterized by their useful information about the vegetation. The survey floristic composition. They are interpreted in the con by SATCHELL (1978) about the ecology of the Emi text of the saharo-arabian vegetation. Some general rates is in its geobotanical part based on the brief pa problems in the application of the phytosociological per of VESEY-FITZGERALD (1957). approach to desert vegetation are discussed. The first aim of this contribution is to give a com The Emirates have a hot desert climate. The com prehensive information about the most important ve bination of a tropical temperature regime and winter getation types and land units of Dubai. We concentrate rain results in a mixture of holarctic and paleotropic on the coastal region and the foreland of the Musandam elements. The endemic species belong to the omano- Mountains. These data are based on field trips by MÜL makranian chorotype. LER-HOHENSTEIN in 1986 and by DEIL in 1987. The pattern of the plant communities is ruled by Secondly, the vegetation of Dubai will be com the relief. The coastal vegetation complex is characte pared with other regions of the Old Wold desert belt rized by Limonium stocksii and Zygophyllum qata- and interpreted in a wider geographical context. This rense. On the dunes grows the Cornulaco monacan- comparison is based on a personel knowledge of the thae-Sphaerocometum aucheri, in silty depressions desert vegetation in the Maghreb countries and in the Halopeplidetum perfoliatae. The inland dune ve North Yemen and on the available literature. getation is dominated by Rhanterium epapposum. The third topic are chorological aspects. Southern The original Prosopis cineraria- woodlands there have Arabia is the transition zone from the Holarctic to the been nearly everywhere destroyed and are replaced Paleotropical Kingdom, from extratropical to tropical by the Leptadenio-Rhynchosietum schimperi. In the climate. How is this situation reflected by the plant dune valleys we find the Helianthemum lippii-Fago- communities in Dubai and do the different life forms nia ovalifolia- community. The ephemeral Chrozo- react in a different way? FREITAG (1991) demon phora sabulosa-c ommunity develops on the inland strated, that even the halophytes, growing quite inde dunes, the Frankenio-Zygophylletum simplicis on sal pendently from the precipitation regime and there ty sand. In the stony desert, the Pseudogaillonio hy- fore often regarded as »azonak, show a clear geo menostephanae-Euphorbietum laricae colonizes rock graphical pattern around the Arabian peninsula, outcrops. The Saccharo griffithii-Nerietum masca- mostly ruled by temperatures. tense is the wadi vegetation type of deep incised canyons. Finally a syntaxonomic survey is given. 2 Methodological and synsystematic problems Saharo-Arabian vegetation, chorology, phytosociology, desert ecology Under arid conditions and in extreme habitats like saline depressions, plant communities are often com posed of very few species and there exist also mono- 1 Introduction specific vegetation units like the Halopeplidetum per foliatae. Nevertheless, they can be associations in the There has been a good progress in the floristic know sense of the phytosociological approach of BRAUN- ledge of the Southeastern parts of the Arabian penin BLANQUET (1964). In other cases, they are named sula by the flora of MANDAVILLE (1990), the Emi and classified according to the dominant species and rate flora of WESTERN (1989) and the more popular are fazies of associations sensu strictu. If we have a introduction to the nature of Dubai by JONGBLOED look at the geobotanical literature of the Middle East, (1987). But detailed studies about the vegetation of there are some authors, which refer to the Braun- this part of Arabia are still missing. The statement of Blanquet approach. But indeed, they use only the ZOHARY (1973) is still up-to-date: »We are especially values proposed by BRAUN-BLANQUET to estimate the cover-abundance of the species. Their vegetation * Dedicated to Prof. Dr. Reinhard Bornkamm on the units are based on dominant species, not on the fide occasion of his 65th birthday. lity of the taxa in a big data set. The result is an infla- Fig. 1 Climatic Diagram of Dubai T| = mean monthly maximum temperatures T 2 = mean monthly minimum temperatures P = mean monthly precipitation H| = mean monthly maximum of the air humidity H-> = mean monthly minimum of the air humidity 27.1°C = mean annual temperature (81°F) 83.2mm = mean annual sum-total of precipitation (3.27”) 47.3°C = absolute maximum temperature (117°F) 7.7° C = absolute minimum temperature (46°F) 231.2mm= highest amount of precipitation per year (9.1") 22.8mm = lowest amount of precipitation per year(0.89") Period of observation 1973 - 1984 Fig. 2 The natural landscapes of Dubai tion of »communities«, often documented only by a are two major problems in such studies: First, the cri single relevé or by a constancy column, in some cases teria of botanists for environmental homogeneity are even without any tables. These communities are not different. Secondly, we have to deal with taxonomic arranged in an hierarchical system, which would be and nomenclatural problems. Older studies often use the expression of the gradual ecological value of the collective taxa, for example in the genera Calligo- species. num , Fagonia, Stipagrostis, Helianthemum, Limo- The decision, whether the communities are a typus nium, Cyperus (Section Arenarii ) or Zygophyllum. or not, could be taken by comparative tables, like it For Zygophyllum , EL-HADIDI (1977) has clearly has been done by BORNKAMM & KEHL (1990) in shown, that a finer taxonomic treatment of an euryoe- their survey of the Western desert of Egypt. But there cious and widely distributed taxon ends up with ste- Fig-3 Phytogeographical and climatical frontiers in Arabia1 (adopted from MÜLLER-HOHENSTEIN 1988, see further references there) 1 On the left: Borderlines between the Holarctic and the Paleotropical Kingdom after DIELS 1908 (dotted line), AL HUBAISHI & MÜLLER-HOHENSTEIN 1984 (continuous) and KÜRSCHNER 1986a (intermittent) On the right: Borderlines between subtropical and tropical climatic zones after TROLL & PAFFEN 1965 (dotted line), VON WISSMANN 1962 (continuous) and CREUTZBURG & HABBE 1964 (intermittent) noecious, regional vicariants: Zygophyllum qataren- wing concept: If the classification and syntaxonomic se, one of the most common species in the coastal re value of a unit is clear, the association is named ac gions of Dubai, Qatar and Northern Oman is replaced cording to the rules of the plant sociological system further to the north by Z. migahidii , to the southwest (BARKMAN et al. 1986). In other cases, the term by Z hamiense and to the west by Z. mandavillii. In »plant community« is used for a rankless vegetation other cases, different names are synonymous. unit. We use the cover-abundance values of BRAUN- Another problem is, that there exist three synta- BLANQUET (1964), sociability notes are not given. xonomical systems of quite different origin: The sy In the tables, the abbreviation CS stands for character stem of QUEZEL (1965) gives a survey of the vegeta species, DS for differential species. The nomenclature tion of the Western and Central Sahara. His system is here follows MANDAVILLE (1990), BATANOUNY inductive. He started from the association level to the (1981) and COPE (1985). The herbarium specimen higher syntaxa. In the Near and Middle East, the sy are stored at Bayreuth. stem of ZOHARY (1973) is widely accepted. His sys Another problem is, that the vegetation cover tem is deductive, he started from the classes. Both can be classified at different spatial scales and several books do not offer comparative tables and do not pay levels of homogeneity: Three common levels are the much attention to the syntaxa of medium rank (or synusium, the community and the vegetation com ders and alliances). LEONARD (1993) has shown the plex. Here we use the community and the vegetation unsharp definition of the »communities« by ZOHARY complex level. A still unsolved problem is the stra (1963): Within 24 units, Artemisia herba-alba is used tum built by ephemeral species: Should we handle as the naming dominant species, but Artemisia her- them as a synusium in a pluristratified community, as ba-alba s.str. does not occur at all in Southern Iran. a chronocoenose or as an independent unit? We will The third proposal is the classification of the vege discuss this by some examples in chapter 5 (see also tation of Eastern Africa by KNAPP (1968). It is very the discussions in BAIERLE 1993 to the wadi com useful for the tropical parts of Arabia, but this con munities in Southwest Jordan). tribution was published in a quite unknown series and therefore not taken into account by ZOHARY (1973). 3 Physical conditions of the study area The aim of this contribution is not a syntaxono- mical one. We want to characterize the vegetation of A detailed description of the environmental condition a small territory. But we also want to interpret our of the UAE is given by SATCHELL (1978) and some data in a wider context. Therefore we use the follo information can also be drawn from the recently Fig. 4 Climatic conditions of coastal areas in southern Arabia published Atlas (UAE UNIVERSITY 1993).