Abstract
The Province and city of Almería are important areas of the Mediterranean basin with respect to their cultural heritage and environmental values. However, unfortunately, the recent and dramatic landscape transformation has resulted in the destruction of natural habitats and their component species – in the last 50 years, the area of the city has increased from about 2.5 km2 to about 10 km2. The present population is 190,000. The predominant traditional agricultural system of family farms has been replaced by intensive agriculture, greenhouse and built development. The urban area of the city supports about 200 vascular plant species, most of which are associated with ruderal or weed communities. The overall proportion of non-native taxa is 5% but in densely urbanised areas it increases to 12%. The non-native taxa include several genotypes and undescribed varieties of Phoenix dactylifera from North Africa and the highly invasive ornamental species Pennisetum setaceum. Most of the non-native taxa develop during the late spring and autumn, whereas the native taxa develop between the winter and early spring. In addition, the typical urban habitats in the city contain ten important natural or semi-natural coastal, scrub and grassland habitats of plant communities.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almeria visited 15 September 2009
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provinces_of_Spain visited 15 September 2009
Further Reading
Dana ED (2002) Flora y vegetación urbanícolas de la ciudad de Almería: características taxómicas, biogeográficas, fitocenológicas y ecológicas de las especies vegetales no ornamentales de la ciudad. Instituto de Estudios Almerienses, Almería. In Spanish
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Dana, E.D., García-de-Lomas, J., Guerrero, M.A. (2011). Almería. In: Müller, N., Kelcey, J. (eds) Plants and Habitats of European Cities. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-89684-7_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-89684-7_1
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