Format: ORAL

Alexander Rudov1,2, Razmik Papikyan1, Hripsik Qosyan1, Mehdi Dehghani3, Anna Asatryan1, Maria Perez-Serrano4, Aurora Bartolome4, Alicia Perez4, Yekaterina Shcherbakova1, Sara Palacio4

1 Institute of Botany after A.L. Takhtajyan of National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, Yerevan, Armenia 2 Halophytes and C4 Plants Research Laboratory, Department of Plant Sciences, School of Biology, College of Sciences, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran 3 Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Zabol, Zabol, Iran 4Instituto Pirenaico de Ecología, Jaca, Huesca, Spain

Armenia, with an area of less than 30.000 km2, is an important biodiversity hotspot with about 3800 plant species and a very diversity of landscapes and vegetation, that ranges from subalpine communities to forests, steppes, semideserts and even a small sand desert. The semidesert belt is very diverse in soil types, including gypsum. However, botanists of the former century have often misclassified plant communities as gypsophile, while in fact dealing with marls and clays. Due to these misconceptions, up to date no detailed map and no complete floristic inventory of gypsum rich soils has been published. Additionally to the lack of precise data, gypsum outcrops and semideserts as a whole, are not highly valued for conservation by local populations and are highly threatened by destruction and fragmentation, while harboring a good amount of the countrys biodiversity. To address this problem we mapped all gypsum outcrops by satellite imaging (SentinelHub). Within extensive fieldwork we collected soil and herbarium data from all gypsum outcrops in the Republic of Armenia. We created a species inventory for all the species occurring on gypsum and analyzed the soil composition and gypsum content in each gypsum area. Finally we evaluated current threats to these small and unique habitats and the possibility of their conservation. As a result we present an updated and corrected critical checklist of plants occurring on gypsum outcrops in the Republic of Armenia and a detailed map of gypsum habitats in Armenia. Finally, we present recent data on the conservation of gypsum habitats and discuss the actual threats to these unique ecosystems.