Journal of Rangeland

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Eremostachys laevigata is a medicinal and endangered plant that growth in the Iran- Turani ecological region, especially Azerbaijan. It’s medicinal active ingredients is effective on rheumatic disorders and joint pains. Sampling from three provinces of West Azerbaijan, East Azerbaijan and Ardabil was carried out in order to investigate the various parameters of morphological and biomass peoperties. For this purpose, 17 feature of the plant collected fromseven sites were measured and classificatied interms of their most important features. According to the results of the analysis of variance, most of the 17 traits were significantly affected by their location. Most of the features showed an outstanding result in Meshkin-Shahr and Oshnavieh, and there is no significant difference between the site leaf area indices. The results of main components analysis of traits showed that the first three components had data variance of about 89 percent. In the first component, the traits of aerial wet biomass weight, collar diameter, main stem diameter, height, internodes number, inflorescence length, inflorescence per plant, basal leaf weight, aerial dry biomass weight and underground biomass weight have played a major role in the formation of this component. In the second component of the trait, the length to width ratio of leaves has more specific vector coefficients. With moving from Oshnavieh and Meshkin-Shahr to other sites having less annual precipitation the characteristics of the specific area index and the length-to-width ratio were increased, and the amount of many attributes are reduced. Also, by moving from Khoy, Khajeh and Meshkin-Shahr locations and increasing the annual mean temperature, the length to width ration of the leaves, aerial wet biomass weight and underground biomass weight were decreased, and in the event of a vice versa movement, on the characteristics of the specific area index, the length and width ration of the leaf, basal leaf width and basal leaf length are increased. Fitting of the dendrogram shows the division of sites based on Euclidian similarity index with the rate of 87.5 to four distinct groups. The first group consists of Khoy and Khajeh, the second Jazire-eslami, the third as Meshkin-Shahr and Oshnavieh and fourth incudes Ahar and Kaleybar. The dendrogram of grouping the traits with Euclidean similarity of 87.5 divided the traits into eight distinct clusters. First cluster included aerial wet biomass weight, underground biomass weight, aerial dry biomass weight, second cluster incudes collar diameter, main stem diameter, height, internodes number, inflorescence per plant, third cluster including inflorescence length, fourth cluster included number of flowered branch, basal leaf area and basal leaf weight, fifth cluster including basal leaf width, sixth cluster including basal leaf length, seventh category including Inflorescence diameter, and specific leaf area, and finally eighth cluster Includes the length to width ration of leaf.

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Background and objectives: In order to further protect of rangeland ecosystems, range suitability should be investigated before the utilization of medicinal and industrial plants. Plant composition, production and steep of the slope are among the criteria that determines the suitability of rangeland for the use of medicinal plants. In four habitats of the following species (Achillea santolinoides, Ziziphora tenuior, Sclerorhachis leptoclada and Hymenocrater calycinus) on three slope classes (less than 30%, 30-30% and more than 60%), importance Value Index (IVI) and accessible production were determined.

Methodology: After field visit and observation of medicinal plants as the dominant species in the rangelands of Room districts of Qaen county, plant habitats were identified and sketched. In herbaceous and woody habitats, plots sized 1 m² and 2 m² were respectively placed. Samples were taken randomly. After measuring the slope on all sampling plots, the slope was statistically analyzed at three levels of less than 30%, 30 to 60% and more than 60%. During the slope gradient, the structural characteristics of vegetation including density, frequency, abundance and dominance of species were measured and based on that, Importance Value Index (IVI) was determined. In order to compare the total production of medicinal plants for different slopes, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Duncan multiple range tests were used. Cluster analysis was also used to group the habitats based on species composition. Species abundance distribution was investigated using geometric series, broken stick, log-normal, Zipf and Mandelbrot models and the data were fitted with each of the above models. The goodness of fit of these models was measured by the Akaike information criterion (AIC). All statistical analysis was done by R software.

Results: The floristic list of the study area showed that in total, 47 plant species belonging to 15 plant families were available, 31 herbaceous, 8 bush, 7 grasses and 1 shrub species. Among the observed species, 66% were medicinal and industrial, 23% forage plants and 11% invasive and thorny. Medicinal plants mostly belonged to Compositae, Apiaceae, Lamiaceae and Brassicaceae. The results showed that Ziziphora tenuior and Achillea santolinoides had the highest density and Artemisia aucheri and Sclerorhachis leptoclada had the highest ground cover. The low presence of medicinal and industrial were seen on low slopes and the highest on moderate and high slopes. The rank-abundance curve showed that the species abundance distribution (SAD) of the whole study area was fit by Mandelbrot model and log-normal, which indicates a stable community. The results showed that with increasing slope, the production of medicinal plants decreases. Achillea santolinoides and Ziziphora tenuior, located on slopes of less than 30%, have the highest production and relative importance, and in terms of these two factors, have the necessary competence for exploitation. 

Conclusion: Although the relative composition of medicinal plants in the region increases with increasing slope, but in terms of plant composition and production, habitats with a slope of more than 60% are not suitable to be used as medicinal plants sites. Generally, in range suitability assessment studies, vegetation cover percentage alone is not enough, because there may be species that are pharmacologically and industrially valuable that have a low cover percentage. Although in this study, not all factors affecting rangeland suitability have been studied directly, but the important value index for rangeland suitability studied and the effect of slope on some vegetation characteristics have been investigated and the results showed that the moderate and high slope and production of medicinal plants decreased. Therefore, with increasing slope, rangeland's suitability for medicinal and industrial plants also decreases.