Urban Floristic Diversity in Bosnia and Herzegovina – the Reflection of Nature

Abstract

The floristic richness of Bosnia and Herzegovina has long been researched, but little attention has been paid to urban flora until recently, and no systematic surveys of urban ecosystems have been conducted. To address this problem, a study of the urban flora of seven cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina was conducted to determine the pattern of floristic diversity and correlation with anthropogenic factors: Size of the urban area, share of green areas in the total urban area, number of inhabitants and population density. The first finding of the study is that cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina are rich in plant species. Species richness reflects the geographical location, so that cities in the Mediterranean biogeographical region are richer in species, such as Mostar and Blagaj, but at the same time species richness also depends on the total area of the city, as is the case with Sarajevo and Banja Luka. The analyses carried out have shown that the floristic diversity of urban flora in Bosnia and Herzegovina largely reflects the natural vegetation of the urban environment compared to urban flora in other parts of Europe. Moreover, the proportion of alien species is lower and contributes to the heterogenisation of the flora. Among the factors of anthropogenisation, population density correlates most strongly with the richness of urban flora. From the results, we conclude that urban plant diversity correlates with both environmental and anthropogenic factors, but in a way that provides a sound basis for conservation systems in urban ecosystems.