Paper Details

PJB-2025-33

Biodiversity study of the southern desert of Basrah Governorate

Suhad A. Al-Knaany, Widad M.T. Al-Asadi, Najlaa Hashem Adlan and Adnan Abdul Hussein Obaid
Abstract

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This study was conducted in the desert of southern Basra for the year 2021-2022 by selecting ten stations, namely Juwaibdah, Al-Haritha, Jabal Sanam, Khidr Al-May, Um-Qasr, Northern Rumaila, Al-Zariji, Qarmat Ali, Southern Rumaila, and Jarishan. The vegetation cover for each station was studied, and frequency and density were calculated. The results of the study showed that the highest number of plant species recorded was at Southern Rumaila station, with 60 plant species, followed by 56 plant species at Khader Al-May station, while the lowest number of recorded species was 14, 15, 16 plant species in Northern Rumaila, Al-Haritha and Juwaibdah stations, respectively. The highest density of species was recorded at Jarishan station, and the lowest density was at Al-Zariji station. At the species level, Cynodon dactylon exhibited the highest plant coverage (70%) in all the stations. Whereas the highest frequency (80%) in all stations was shared by Medicago polymorpha and Plantago boissieri. In this study, remote sensing technology was also used to assess the distribution pattern of natural vegetation in the study sites, as it was found that the vegetation of Safwan district had bigger cover compared to the rest of the studied sites. Khader Al-May and Jarishan stations recorded the highest similarity percentage according to the Jaccard index, amounting to 60%, while Simpson index showed the highest similarity between Juwaibdeh and Jabal Sanam stations (86.67%) and according to Bray-Curtis index, the highest similarity was 75% between Khudari Al-May and Jrishan stations.

 

To Cite this article: Al-Knaany, S.A., W.M.T. Al-Asadi, N.H. Adlan and A.A.H. Obaid. 2026. Biodiversity study of the southern desert of Basrah Governorate. Pak. J. Bot., 58(5): DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.30848/PJB2026-5(2)  
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