Temporal turnover of the flora of lake islands: The island of Lake Pamvotis (Epirus, Greece)

Abstract

Lake Pamvotis is one of the Balkan "ancient" lakes, a Quaternary refugium of great environmental importance and ecological value, that is under various anthropogenic pressures. It belongs to a Natura 2000 Special Area for Conservation and Special Protection Area. Almost in the middle of the lake, there is an inhabited island - one of the two lake islands in Greece – that also attracts touristic interest. Τhe main objectives of the present study are to provide a floristic inventory of the protected island, combining data of two different sampling periods, within a 25 year interval, in order to estimate temporal beta diversity and species turnover of the island’s plant diversity. The value of the absolute and relative turnover rates of the floristic diversity of the island studied are 4.24 and 1.72, respectively and are amongst the higher rates reported for plants. The absolute difference between extinct (E) and immigrant (l) taxa is to a great extent accounted, concerning life forms, by therophytes (1.86), hemicryptophytes (1.56) and geophytes (1.04) and, for habitats, by taxa preferring agricultural and ruderal forms (2.52).

Keywords

• protected area
• plant diversity
• island diversi