Centre for Middle Eastern Plants

Call For Papers: Travellers In Ottoman Lands – The Botanical Legacy

Felicity Anderson — Fri, 11 Nov 2016 15:39:09 +0000

Call for paper submissions for a two-day seminar Saturday May 13 – Sunday May 14 2017 at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, presented by the Association for the Study of Travel in Egypt and the Near East (ASTENE) in conjunction with the Centre for Middle Eastern Plants, part of the Royal Botanic Garden.

Poster for Travellers in Ottoman Lands Seminar

Contributions are welcome from a wide range of disciplines and interests. It is envisaged that the Seminar will cover many fascinating subjects on (though not restricted to) the following main themes:

Travellers’ accounts related to the botanical legacy of any part of the former Ottoman Empire (e.g. present-day Turkey, the Levant, Egypt, the Balkans, Arabian Peninsula etc.)
The flora of the region, including their heritage, preservation and medicinal uses
Bulbs of the region, especially tulips, and their cultural significance; Tulipomania
Ottoman garden design and architecture
Floral and related motifs in Ottoman art, including textiles, ceramics etc.
Culinary aspects of the botanical legacy of the region
Literary, pictorial and photographic depictions of any aspect of the botanical and horticultural legacy of the region
Orientalism as applicable to any of the seminar’s main themes

15 February 2017

Please see this poster for further details.

Birds of Peramagroon App live

Sophie Neale — Tue, 02 Jun 2015 15:54:44 +0000

An identification app for the 133 bird species of Peramagroon Mountain in Iraq has just been released. This is part of our Iraqi Darwin Initiative project and is designed to be an easy-to-use identification tool for education, training and monitoring purposes. The next step is to create a Kurdish language version.

Peramagroon mountain has been designated an Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) because of its globally threatened and biome-restricted species. The breeding bird species diversity and abundance is very high – amongst the highest in the whole Kurdistan Region. Twelve species of birds of prey breed, with good populations, including the globally endangered Egyptian Vulture. The bird you can see above on the icon for the app is the Eastern Rock Nuthatch which is seen in especially high densities in Peramagroon.

The app can be downloaded for Android or iOS devices. We would like to thank the publishers, Bloomsbury, and authors and artists of Birds of the Middle East for allowing us to use the illustrations from the book. You can find out more about how the app was developed on the botanics stories website.

Dragons, rare goats, owls and night owls

Sophie Neale — Mon, 23 Dec 2013 11:43:49 +0000

Richard Porter

BirdLife International

A great wildlife experience awaits anyone who visits Peramagroon Mountain in Iraqi Kurdistan. Nature Iraq’s annual training event this autumn, supported by UK’s Darwin Initiative Programme, was no exception.

Whilst this time of year is quiet for birds, students enjoyed fine views of that magnificent vulture, the Lammergeier, soaring high over the mountain peaks. Kurdistan Wheatears were still on territory though will soon be leaving when the winter snows arrive. Tawny Owls hooted from two woodland sites – a rare bird in Iraq which has yet to be proven to breed.

The Wild Goat is threatened in Iraq and few are fortunate enough to even glimpse it. One morning whilst surveying plants and birds on the mountain slopes a group of five were watched bounding across a grassy meadow. These shy creatures have, in the past, been hunted near to extinction. Now, happily, their numbers are increasing and Nature Iraq has done much to encourage this by raising awareness of the threats to them.

Iraq boasts a list of 40 species of dragonfly. Remarkably, however, during Nature Iraq/Darwin’s training programme four new species have been added to the national list, three this autumn. One of the most impressive, the Eastern Willow Spreadwing, is shown below.

A study of these important indicators of water quality would be highly rewarding, as well as adding greatly to the knowledge of Iraq’s fauna.

Nature Iraq/Darwin studies didn’t stop in the daytime. Night Owls were also at work! The team from the Center for Middle Eastern Plants were helping their NI colleagues with identifying and cataloguing the plants of Peramagroon. So far over 600 species have been recorded and profiled – often requiring dedication until past midnight!

Botanists help Socotra bird studies

Sophie Neale — Sun, 11 Aug 2013 12:00:48 +0000

By Richard Porter

BirdLife International, Cambridge

The publication of the seminal Ethnoflora of the Socotra Archipelago by RBGE’s Tony Miller and Miranda Morris in 2004 was not just an important ‘botanical moment’, but also one that helped mould the study of Socotra’s bird populations.

Published in the latest issue of Sandgrouse,the journal of the Ornithological Society of the Middle East (OSME), a paper (the first of two) by Ahmed Saeed Suleiman and me, chronicles and documents the populations and maps the distribution of the breeding birds of Socotra.

** Porter, RF & AS Suleiman. 2013. The populations and distribution of the breeding birds of the Socotra archipelago, Yemen: 1. Sandgrouse to Buntings. Sandgrouse 35: 43-81.

Map of Socotra showing major habitat types

This is the most comprehensive assessment of the breeding populations of birds of any large region in the Middle East, possibly even the world, and I hope it can provide a base-line for environmental monitoring on the island.

So what is the botanical connection? Well Miller and Morris identified seven main habitat types on the island, shown in this map, and these provided the basis for calculating bird populations from over 380 kms of transects made between 1999 and 2008. Through our detailed surveys and with a knowledge of the area of each habitat type we were able to calculate the total population of each breeding species and, equally important, determine the importance of each habitat for each species. That would not have been possible without the botanists’ hard graft.

To give a flavour of the paper, here is the entry for Socotra Sunbird, one of the ten endemic breeding birds in the archipelago:

Socotra Sunbird Chalcomitra balfouri (endemic, Figure 20, Plate 30).

Socotra Sunbird: Socotran breeding distribution.

This, the sixth commonest breeding bird in the archipelago, is only found on Socotra island where it is widespread, especially where trees, shrubs and nectar producing plants are in flower 0–1000 m asl. Analysis of the transect data shows a population of 65 876 individuals (95% CI 50 362–86 169). Table 5 shows that the highest density, c29 birds/km², was recorded in the semi-evergreen woodland of limestone escarpments and sheltered ravines (habitat type A). Song and display have been recorded 30 October–5 April, copulation 23 February, nest building 30 October–16 March, nests with eggs (2 ´ c/2) 1–3 March and nests with young 30 March

(c/3)–1 May. Recently fledged (but still dependent) young have also been seen on 27 October (see Plate 30) and thus eggs would have been laid in about mid September. Thus the known breeding season is September–May.

Both projects – the botanical and bird studies – were funded wholly or partly by the UK’s Darwin Initiative and only progressed because of the involvement and support of our Socotran collegues and friends. I would like to thank them.

**If you would like to purchase a copy of Sandgrouse 35, the price is £10, including postage. Contact sales@osme.org to order and find out how to pay.

The 8th Plant Life of South West Asia conference

s74admin — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 11:19:33 +0000

The 8th Plant Life of South West Asia conference starts next week. More details at www.ploswa8.org.uk or for late registrations contact ploswa8@cmep.org.uk

PLoSWA8 now July 2013

s74admin — Tue, 28 May 2013 15:13:43 +0000

The dates of the 8^th Plant Life of South West Asia conference have now changed. The symposium will now be held from the 1^st – 5^th July 2013 at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.

Details of the website with further details will be announced shortly.