Spatial Monitoring of the Modern Environmental Situation in Localities of Vavilovia formosa (Fabaceae) Based on Predictive Climatic Modeling

Spatial monitoring was conducted and the environmental situation assessed in local populations of a relict endemic species, V. formosa, based on a climatic modeling of its distribution range performed using the maximum entropy method. Plants belonging to this species live only in high mountains on open unsodded shale screes in periglacial zones and sporadically occur in mountain systems of the Taurus Mountains, Armenian Highlands, Caucasus Ridge, and Elburz Range. V. formosa is an extremely rare species listed in the Red Data Books of Russia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia, as well as in many regional Red Data Books. The limiting factors determining its rarity previously remained unidentified, which raised the need to assess the environmental situation in all habitats of this species on the basis of climatic modeling. An original methodology has been developed to assess the environmental situation within and around the localities of the species using the following gradations: favorable, unfavorable, and ambivalent; a quantitative point-based assessment technique is proposed for this purpose. The new methodology makes it possible to identify the most favorable areas for the preservation of local V. formosa populations. The environmental situation was recognized low favorable for 11 local populations, unfavorable for 23 local populations, and ambivalent for 36 local populations. Such an approach to describing the environmental situation around localities is proposed for the first time in international practice. The purpose of this approach is to obtain the most accurate formalized information on the climatic situation in each locality and in each nestle cell surrounding the locality throughout the entire distribution range of a given species. To formalize a description of a specific climatic situation, a color scale of rasters generated in MAXENT is proposed: 1 point is assigned to loci adversely affected by the complex of climatic factors (blue segment of the spectrum), 2 points are assigned to neutrally affected loci (green segment of the spectrum), and 3 points are assigned to loci positively affected by the complex of climatic factors (yellow-red segment of the spectrum).