SANTORINI NATURE

Nature of Santorini

. In spite of the Santorini volcanic past shows no depletion of flora and fauna. The species numbers are comparable to other islands of the southern Aegean Sea. The possibility of documentation of immigration,  offer the islands in the caldera.

For nearly 200 years, the flora of Santorini has been studied by many researchers and is therefore relatively well known. First foundations created by the end of the 19th Century. By the time 240 recorded species of the flora was classified as impoverished. According to modern view, the island group is regarded as floristically not saturated, an increase in the number of species in consequence of an ongoing migration process is assumed. Previously, on the Santorini archipelago of more than 550 kinds of products shown ferns and seed plants, 178 species of Palea Kameni and Nea Kameni 156 species. About 95% of the flora of Palea and Nea Kameni are also found on the older ring islands, immigration is expected from there.

Thicket forming plants and olive groves are almost complete. The vegetation is composed of approximately 97% of the typical bushes in various combinations on nearly all the older fallows, the transition to younger fallows is seamless.

Particularly well studied is the flora of Nea Kameni, seven collecting trips since 1911 provided a total of 156 species of ferns and seed plants. By volcanic eruptions in the first half of the 20th Century, stocks have been decimated repeatedly. The actual number of species is 130 species (1987). According to the volcanic activities of the 20th Century have evolved in different locations, different types of plant communities. Permanent immigration of species and development accompanies a displacement process of pioneer plants. Apart from some Ficus carica trees, the volcanic activity of the 20 Century survived characterize dense clumps of Hyparrhenia hirta and the annual Lupinus angustifolius, the steppe vegetation. To observe the development of the beginning of a shrub vegetation since the mid-1980s. Has established itself Atriplex halimus, the first seedlings of Pistacia lentiscus were detected.