Investigation on relationship between ecological factors and plant associations of Geno Protected Area

The Genu Protected Area encompasses Kuh–e–Genu, a single and isolated mountain rising above the Persian Gulf Coastal plain. The Genu Protected Area is located in Hormozgan province, 30 km north west of BandarAbbas between latitudes (27°18′50″-27°29′16″ N) and longitudes (55° 57′30″-56°18′4″E), at about 70 to 2347m above sea level. It covers an area of about43000 hectares. The main aim of this research is to identify relationship between plant associations and environmental factors. In this investigation the relationship between environmental factors and establishment and expansion of plant associations was carried out. The each plant association, 38 ecological factors including different soil characteristics such as soil texture, lime, saturation moisture, gypsum, acidity, electrical conductivity, soluble ions (Na+, K+, N, P, Mg2+, Ca2+, CL-, CO32-, HCO3-, SO42-) in two depth, elevation and slope of habitat were determined too. Multivariate method (Principal component analysis) was used to analyze the collected data. A matrix of vegetation and environmental factors was prepared and the ordination was done by the PCA using PC-ORD software. The results show that the measured environmental variables affected the plant association distribution pattern. The most important factors that have influenced plant associations separation are as follows: electrical conductivity, elevation, moisture saturation, organic matter, lime, K+, Na+, SO42-, Ca2+, CL-, Mg2+ and slope of habitat, respectively. The multivariate analysis expression, the effects of the complicated environmental variables on the plants in a simpler way and introduce the most important factors. As a general, each plant association depends on habitat conditions, ecological needs and tolerance shows a significant relation with environmental factors especially some soil properties.