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Medicinal Plant Research 2014, Vol.4, No.7, 55
-
60
http://mpr.biopublisher.ca
55
Research Report Open Access
Conservation Position of Plant Species in Tehsil Katlang, District Mardan, Pakistan
Musharaf Khan
1
, Shahana Musharaf
2
1. Department of Botany, Federal Government College Mardan, Pakistan
2. Department of Chemistry, Government Girls Degree College S. Maltoon, Mardan, Pakistan
Corresponding author email: k.musharaf@gmail.com;
Authors
Medicinal Plant Research, 2014, Vol.4, No.7 doi: 10.5376/mpr.2014.04.0007
Received: 08 Apr., 2014
Accepted: 20 Apr., 2014
Published: 22 May, 2014
Copyright
© 2014 Khan and Musharaf. This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article:
Khan and Musharaf, 2014, Conservation Position of Plant Species in Tehsil Katlang, District Mardan, Pakistan, Medicinal Plant Research, 2014, Vol.4, No.7
55-60 (doi: 10.5376/mpr.2014.04. 0007)
Abstract
The present study documents the conservation status of plant species in Tehsil Katlang, Pakistan. We have documented
the conservation status of 45 plant species belonging to 34 genera and 25 families in which 13 species are found to be rare,
vulnerable (20 species), Infrequent (4 species) , endangered (9 species) and it is decisive that no species was found to be dominant.
After four years extensive field studies on the basis of questioner including availability of plant, collection of plant, growth of plant,
plant parts, population size, geographic range and habitat we have concluded that 5 tree i.e.
Ficus palmata
,
Monothecea buxifolia,
Morus alba
,
Vitis vinifera
and
Ziziphus jujuba
and 4 shrubs i.e
Jasminium vrandiflorum, Rhazya stricta, Otostegia Limbata
and
Zizyphus nummularia
are endangered species in research area.
Keywords
Conservation; Trees; Shrubs; Vulnerable; Infrequent; Endangered; Pakistan
Background
The ecologists are naturally interested to record
vegetation in diverse geographical areas. Plant species
contribute to the beauty and character of the region.
Different native tree and shrub species distinguish one
place from another. Trees are significant to the overall
quality of our environment. Trees balance increase
impacts, significantly reduce noise pollution, air
temperature, smog, pollutants from the air, and turn
down topsoil erosion. Trees are an important component
of numerous ecosystems and provide habitats for
songbirds, small forest animals, wildflowers, and
smaller understory trees. The conservation status of a
plant species indicates whether the group is still extant.
Many factors are taken into account when assessing
conservation status: not simply the number of
individuals remaining, but the overall increase or
decrease in the population over time, breeding success
rates, known threats, and so on. The International
Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has
calculated the percentage of endangered species as 40
percent of all organisms based on the sample of
species that have been evaluated through 2006 (Anon.,
2008). Native plants are key components of the global
biodiversity, these plants are an integral part of our
ecosystem in which they are facing multiple threats i.e.
habitat loss and degradation, introduction of alien
species, pollution and diseases, over-exploitation and
climate change (Khan et al., 2012); Khan et al.,
2013a). District Mardan’s picture is not different from
the rest of the country (Khan et al., 2013b; Khan and
Musharaf, 2014; Khan et al., 2014a; 2014b). Plant
biodiversity is also under tremendous pressure due to
its population explosion, unplanned urbanization,
deforestation and over-exploitation of natural resources.
Unfortunately, very little work has been done on
threatened plants of Pakistan and extremely limited
information is available on this subject (Khan, 2013).
According to Nasir (1991) 580-650 flowering plant
species (i.e. 12%) are expected to be threatened.
Chaudhri and Qureshi (1991) reported 709 taxa as
threatened plants from Pakistan. Alam and Ali (2009),
who classified Astragalus gilgitensis as a Critically
Endangered (CR). Khan and Hussain (2013), Khan et
al. (2013C) and Khan et al. (2011) studied the
conservation study of Tehsil Takhti-e-Nasrati and
Tehsil Karak. In contrast, the recent red list of IUCN
(Anon., 2008) only 19 flowering plants species have
been listed from Pakistan. Regarding Pakistan,
previous workers have classified the plant species as