فهرست مطالب سیده زهره میردیلمی

In Iran, the economic and social dependency of pastoralists on pasture fodder has intensified due to population growth among pastoral communities. Rangeland managers are concerned about the imbalance between livestock and available pastures. In response, decision-makers have sought to alleviate pressure on rangelands by promoting alternative livelihoods and implementing multiple-use projects. However, the successful implementation of multiple-use projects in Golestan and Azadshahr provinces has faced challenges, even after five years of project review service announcements. This study aims to investigate the reasons for the non-acceptance of multiple-use projects in the rangelands of Azadshahr and Gonbad.

The study was conducted in three stages: discovery, evaluation and analysis, and the development of the final structure. Various ecological, economic, and social indicators were used to assess the acceptance of multiple-use projects among rangeland users. Data were collected through questionnaires and interviews, and the reasons for non-acceptance were compared using pairwise comparisons on the Likert scale. The selection of representatives was based on the reputation approach and targeted sampling, considering criteria such as work history, experience, and literacy level. Hierarchical analysis was performed using Expert Choice 11, and judgments on the acceptance or rejection of given ranks were made based on pairwise comparisons and compatibility rates.

The results indicated that economic, political-institutional, and environmental criteria were the primary factors contributing to the non-acceptance of multiple-use projects. Insufficient economic stability, lack of job security, inappropriate timing and location of project implementation, and inadequate government support were cited as some of the key indicators. Respondents also highlighted top-down management approaches and a lack of attention to user participation in decision-making and planning as significant issues.

Overall, the findings suggest that pastoralists have a low acceptance of multi-purpose plans, indicating the failure of planners and decision-makers to effectively engage stakeholders in these projects. It is recommended to enhance participation at various levels of decision-making, planning, and implementation. This can be achieved through increased training programs and the establishment of non-governmental organizations, fostering greater user involvement in future projects.

The aim of the present study was to identify poisonous plants for livestock, signs of poisoning, indigenous methods of treatment by exploiting tribes and also to identify medicinal plants for livestock and how to use them and their healing properties. The selection of the population was a statistically responsive sample from the local communities. In this study, the respondent population consisted of Turkmen nomads in the Maravah Tappeh rangelands. In this study, purposive sampling and snowball method were used; a number of experienced exploitation nomads were selected for the initial interview. After designing the topic and gaining their trust and confidence in the research topic, the questionnaire was prepared and its validity and reliability were examined. Simultaneously with the field survey, a number of questionnaires were provided to the selected exploiting tribes. The validity of the questionnaire was calculated and determined by calculating the Cronbach's alpha coefficient for different criteria. The named plants were identified. Finally, 26 poisonous plants and 24 medicinal plants for livestock were introduced by farmers.

In the field of natural resource’s utilization and management, the two groups of stakeholders, utilizers and official experts are not quite agreed. It is obvious that each of these two social groups, depending on their interests and duties, have different points of views, as a result different plans for the development and managent. Finding the differences thus, could be effective in decision making and planning. In this study, the views of two groups of utilizers, managers and facilitators in Azadshahr and Gonbad rangelands in Golestan province were taken into account. The focus was on the reasons for low rate of acceptance for multiple-use projects. Required data were gathered through questionnaires and open interviews (consist of 6 indices and 90 items) with members of both groups. The results of questionnaires and interviews were analyzed using Discriminant Analysis (DA) in STATISTICA. Survey shows that utilizers have a different view of about 50.12% from the expert group of executives and managers. The most different issues were institutional, political, social and economic. On environmental issues such as water shortage (12.06%), human resources including literacy and household dimension (12.14%) there was almost agreements. The highest disagreement was found on organization-policy including inadequate government services, insufficient interaction of authorities with local and utilizers, etc. (65.32%). Based on the results, facilitators must take part in educational workshops on the mechanism of implementation of the multiple-use projects to encourage the utilizers to accept and well use of the plans.

Medicinal plants are among the valuable natural resources of countries and can play a significant role in earning income and employment. To utilize the medicinal plants properly, the socio-economic factors affecting the monetization of these plants should be analyzed. Therefore, the present qualitative study was aimed at investigating the various factors affecting the ability to earn money from the medicinal plants of Lazur rangelands in Tehran province. The questionnaire and statistical communities of experts and utilizers were used to collect the required data. The responsive communities were selected based on the reputation analysis and purposeful sampling. This research was conducted in two parts. In the first part, the economic, social, natural, physical-infrastructural, human, and institutional policy factors were compared in pairs and ranked in terms of their contribution to the monetization of medicinal plants. To determine the most effective factor, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was used and the judgments were made about the acceptance or rejection of the given ranks using the inconsistency rate. In the second part, some items were considered for each factor and the items were ranked separately on the Likert scale in terms of their role in the monetization. To compare the item rankings, the Mann-Whitney non-parametric analysis was used for two data sets and the Friedman one for more than two data sets. The results showed that in terms of the responsive communities, the economic factor with the first rank and institutional policy factor with the third rank were the most important factors in the monetization of medicinal plants. The physical and natural factors ranked second in terms of the local communities and experts, respectively. The means comparison of the items in the social, physical-infrastructural, and human factors showed that the mean score of items of each factor in the monetization had a statistically significant difference (p < /em>-value<0.05). In general, the results of present study showed that the provision of facilities, governmental support, processing facilities in the region, and coordination of activities of other institutions had the highest rank and therefore a greater role in the monetization of medicinal plants in the region.

Indigenous knowledge has been created as centuries of human life experience in this earth and is also specific-ecosystem. "Ethnobotany" is a new extra-disciplinarily of anthropological science and technology in the field of indigenous plant-related knowledge. Khosh Yeylagh rangeland in Golestan province has been studied due to the richness of plant species. The purpose of this study is to collect data from and identify plants having been utilized by local people. Data were recorded in both interview and participatory observation at the plant habitat. The interviewees were selected by snowball method. The local names, used organs, medicinal properties and their use were recorded for all plants. In this study, plant species belonging to 17 families, with the highest number of citations, were selected. The results of this study show that out of 30 selected plant species, 17 belong to edible medicinal, 10 medicinal and 3 medicinal industrial applications. Knowing and habitat prediction of plant species was also one of the most important practical knowledge of local people in Khosh Yeylagh. They are aware of the various forms of vegetation, organ, processes, properties and methods of using plants as food, medicine, tools and shelter in their lives.

Insight into the relationship between plants and environmental characteristics is essential for managing rangeland ecosystems. The present study investigate the effect of soil and topographic factors on the distribution of the most important medicinal plants in Khosh Yeilagh Golestan province. Parameters such as density, frequency and canopy percent were the subjects of the study. Random-systematic method was used through plots establishment along the transect in the study area. The geolocation and gradient levels, altitude and sea level were measured and recorded. Through each transect, soil samples were taken at the center of 3 plots from 0 to 30 cm depth. Physical and chemical properties of soil were then measured. In order to introduce the most effective environmental factor on distribution of medicinal plants, Detrended Correspondence Analysis (DCA) and Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) were used in PC-ORD5. The result of CCA showed 53% of the total variation was justified by the first, second and third axes. Elevation, geographic and organic factors with correlation coefficient of -0.520, 0.472 and -0.470, respectively, in the first axis of ordination, the gradient factor with a correlation coefficient of 0.601,-0.568 and -0.558 in the second axis and the sand percent factor with a correlation of 0.400 in the third axis of ordination was introduced as the most effective factors on the distribution of medicinal species in khosh Yeilagh. Obviously in future rehabilitation of the rangelands result of the study could improve the production of the medicinal plants.

Undoubtedly, land degradation linked to desertification causes a decrease in qualitative and quantitative features of natural resources. This research aimed to assess land desertification by local residents and their role in controlling desertification in Isfahan province, Iran in 2016. The criteria were soil climate, vegetation, erosion, and demography. The indicators of soil texture, stone fragment, organic matter, soil depth, Electrical Conductivity (EC), soil drainage, soil slope, precipitation, evapotranspiration, aridity index, fire risk, erosion protection, drought resistance, plant cover percent, wind erosion, water erosion, land use, population density, grazing intensity, policy, and management. Some parameters include land use, DEM, NDVI, roads, springs, fire history data, stress intensity, tolerance, mean productivity, AUM index, lithology, morphology and relief, wind speed, soil characteristics, plant cover percent, wind erosion features, soil moisture, type and distribution of sand dunes, and land management. The assessment of desertification has been conducted by the Mediterranean Desertification and Land Use (MEDALUS) method in ArcGIS10 software. This research was based on the importance of socio-economic issues, establishing a realistic framework for qualitative indicators and indices adapted to Iran’s situation. Those are population, poverty and economics, people rights and institutional regulations, and socio-cultural criteria achieved by an interview with local communities and experts. A single desertification status map was generated based on all the quality maps. Finally, the generated map was compared with local settlements density map. Results showed that 91.23% of the rangelands (with area 38203 km2) are classified as severe and moderate with low settlements density and 1.83% of the rangelands (with area 766 km2) are lower in severity with high settlement density. This result illustrated that local settlements and nomadic have a positive role in combating the desertification. They are able to eliminate the desertification to minimum and vice versa. The desertification status and local settlements density maps are essential in management efforts to combat the desertification via local settlement abilities.

In ecology, the gradual changes in any environmental factor (gradient) with the change in species composition and growth forms are illustrated as a boundary. Defining the boundaries of the vegetative regions of Iran is a fundamental issue for ecosystem management specially the management of plant vegetation. In this study, the ecological boundary of the vegetative regions of Iran (i.e., Irano-Turanian steppe/mountainous vegetative region, Irano-Turanian desert vegetative region, and Zagrosi vegetative region) presented in Pabo’s map was identified, analyzed, and reevaluated across the climatic gradient. The present study was carried out in the climatic gradient of Dena-Tabas. This climatic gradient encompasses the three aforementioned vegetative regions. Dispersion indices including half changes, beta diversity, and standard deviation were used to identify the ecological boundary of plant communities. The results indicated that the length of the gradient was 8.06 SD and 15.13 Hc. Considering the changes in the species composition, the boundary of these three vegetative regions presented in Pabo’s map did not match with the ecological boundary identified by Hc index with the beta diversity above 50 percent. It can be argued that by calculating half changes and beta diversity, the boundary between the vegetative regions can be identified or corrected with a higher degree of certainty.

The Iranian rangeland stakeholders have special idea about rangeland problems. Dissimilarity of viewpoints in rangeland stakeholders is effective on decision making and planning. Having clear picture on similarity and dissimilarity between stakeholder's viewpoints is important to managers in action and decision making. In this research gathered idea of 4 groups of rangeland stakeholders (utilizers, experts and managers, scientists and researchers and co-operative and personal sections) on rangeland management system inefficiency. This study was carried out at regional level (Golestan and Khorasan provinces). Then, averaging of the stakeholders opinions presented at the public and private sections. The inefficiency of rangeland management system has been evaluated by three criteria economic-social, ecological and policy. The used tools were through questionnaires and interview that asked 186 rangeland stakeholders to rank. The sampling population was based on reputation analysis andselectively defined according to some criteria. The validity and reliability of questionnaires were approved by a panel of experts and calculating Cronbach alpha coefficient respectively. Data analyzed by Discriminant Analysis (DA) at STATISTICA software. Result showed that the private section believed that drought is the main problem while the public section believed that the outer-institutional topics are the main problems. So, there are specific different opinions that are important in planning and decision making processes.

Problems of Iranian rangelands are numerous and providing solutions for them is impossible except through comprehensive investigation. The purpose of this study was to extract the management structure of Iranian rangelands. The study tools were questionnaires and interview. This study was conducted in three stages of exploration, evaluation, and analysis and extraction of the final structure. In the exploratory stage, the position of different parts of Iran's rangeland management structure was purposefully determined with a survey of experts in education, research, and executive sectors as well as rangeland exploiters. In this stage, the initial hierarchical structure of the factors influencing management of rangelands was designed (panel section). In the evaluation stage, using the questionnaire, the structure was subjected to the judgment of the responsive communities. In the final stage, using statistical analysis of data, the final hierarchical structure was extracted and designed. The accuracy and reliability of the resulting model was evaluated using Cronbach's coefficient. In this study, the statistical software SPSS 18 and STATISTICA were used. According to the results, Iran’s rangeland system consists of three levels in a hierarchical manner. Rangeland arena, education and research system, executive system and exploitation system are located in the first level. Each component at the first level was subdivided into its sub-components at lower levels. This structure more accurately categorizes the problems and makes it more understandable and more manageable. In this way, more strategic and managerial actions could be taken at each level and component.

Biodiversity is an important concept in ecology and vegetation management. Beta diversity is one of biodiversity levels. The aim of the study was to identify environmental gradient using beta diversity. The vegetation sampling was done using 536 randomly selected plots. Environmental unit maps were prepared by overlaying of basic maps (slope, aspect and elevation). The Gamma, Alfa and beta diversity in environmental units were calculated with Shannon index. The beta diversity variations showed that height variation is between "Ju. Ex, As. Go" and "Po bu, Co. ne" environment units (1.83). This gradient is main gradient called "Juniperus-Grass" gradient. of study area. According to the results, beta diversity index has good performance in showing variations between plant communities. Beta diversity can accurately be used to interpret diversity, similarity and dissimilarity between communities and rank main gradients.Key words: Beta Diversity, Gradient, Plant composition, Environmental units, Variations

Range management plans are as one of the best tools to rangeland management and utilization. This study aimed to identify the success and failure causes of range management plans in Golestan province. Questionnaire method was used to collect data from supervising experts in range management plans. Multivariate analysis and Spearman rank correlation were used to data analysis at PC-ORD 5 and SPSS 16 softwares. Common traditional use of rangelands, lack of penalties for uncommitted users, not distinguish between committed and uncommitted utilizers, preparation of the plans without attention to utilizers viewpoint and preparing plans without economic justification were identified as the most important failure reasons of these plans (each of them 24 percent correlation with others). Undesirable plans and lack of distinguish between professional offenders were among other important failure reasons of the plans (each of these 23 percent correlation). These mentioned factors have high and significant correlation (above 70 percent) with lack of ownership, lack of disincentive laws, unsuitable proposed projects in economic and ecological issues and up-down policy making. Insurance of range managers, financial supports of plans supervisors, distinguish between committed and uncommitted utilizers (approximately 34 percent) and proposing plans with economy justification, and utilizing of short return were identified as the most important success factors of these plans (32 percent). The identified success factors had 81 percent correlation with offending range managers, 70 percent correlation with give the plans to the experienced experts and 52 percent correlation with preparing the plans with participating of utilizers.

Rangelands of Iran are being faced with various problems. One of the main issues of today’s rangeland managers is not having a clear picture about the main rangeland problems. The aim of the present study is thus to investigate the view of rangeland utilizers by constructing a stem flow. The utilizers are the one who influence rangelands directly. Knowledge of Ttheir view and pure knowledge about rangeland management problems are critically important. Iran's rangeland management systems were systematically constructed as stem flow criteria in 3 levels. The relative weight determined by Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The criteria were politic- social, ecologic and economic. The rangeland utilizers were then asked to rank the elements of levels at each criteria through pair-wise comparison by questionnaires and direct interview. The validity and reliability of questionnaires were approved by a panel of experts and calculating Cronbach alpha coefficient (above 0.7) respectively. Results showed that water shortage (relative weight 0.576), inflation (relative weight 0.385), laws (relative weight 0.293), planning (relative weight 0.282) and property (relative weight 0.384) as well as ownership were the main roots of Iran's rangeland system inefficiency from utilizers point of view.

Considering the importance of vegetation changes and awareness of its destruction or improvement trends in programming and its proper managing of utilization، this study was conducted in order to survey the effects of grazing on the qualitative and quantitative components of vegetation (including life form، growth form، palatability class، plant families and species diversity) and recognition their most important changes in both grazing and enclosed sites in Kalpush plain، Golestan provience. For this purpose، samples were taken via 78 plot 1 square meter in a randomly- systematic method. Mean comparison of the components and recognition of the most changeable components in consequent implementing grazing management were done with t-student test and principle component analysis (PCA) respectively using Spss software. According to the vegetation study، 13 species belong to Asteraceae family and 10 species to Poaceae family and there are 69 Herbaceous species، 13 Grass species and 5 shrubs species of plants in this region. The results of t-Student test indicate an increase in relative density of Therophytes and class I plants، and decrease in Cryptophytes and class III in the enclosed. Also the results point out that grazing has caused increasing in the relative canopy of Shrubs and Champhyte and decreasing in Therophytes، Forbs in the region. Comparison of relative density and canopy cover of plant species in two sites showed a relatively good effect of rangeland enclosing in increasing of the density، restoration and recovery of species composition and diversity. Principal component analysis also showed that the most changeable components in consequent of rangeland enclosing were Forbs، Hemicryphtophyte، Therophyte، Appiacea and Brassicacea families in positive and Shrubs in negative of first axis. Also the Papaveracea and Asteracea families have the most incremental changes in the second component.

Indigenous knowledge on medicinal plants is crucial. This extensive knowledge contains different issues such as ethnobotany of medicinal plants. Ethnobotany is human knowledge on botany and plant ecology. In this paper, an ethnobotanical survey has done in the five Turkmen villages around Kalale district which is located in Northeast of Golestan province. Data collection was done via interviewing, using questionnaires/sheets (totally two hundred and thirty four sheets) at the tree trips/stages to record various data such as collecting time, ecological distribution, local name, medicinal uses and parts of plants used by people. In this study, local people have identified 45 medicinal, edible species which are belonging to 21 families. The results showed that Indigenous knowledge presents invaluable data on the ecological characteristics of plants (ethnoecology), so that can be used to explain distribution of many plant species without applying any expensive and time consuming ecological methods. Meanwhile they have a rich knowledge about medicinal usage of plants.

The scientific investigation of forest vegetation distribution on the elevation gradient of Alborz mountains range can be led to identifying natural habitats on the basis of elevation variation. The purpose of this research is plants distribution pattern investigation along elevation gradient which is located in North slope aspect of Alborz Mountains in Touskestan-Charbagh, Golestan province. The presence of plant species has been recorded on the 24 vertical transect side' roads (12 sampling points) along the gradient of 740 to 2340 meters above sea level with 200 meter distances on this paper. Plant species in the sampled transects has been grouped on basis of similarity and dissimilarity via TWINSPAN analysis in PCORD 5 software. Also relationship between environmental factors (elevation, slope, aspect, rain, temperature, relative humidity and evapotranspiration) and vegetation has been evaluated via Principal Component Analysis (PCA). Result showed that there are 4 distinguished plant groups (A) Tree and bush, (B) bush and Shrub, (C) shrub and forb, (D) forb and grass. The environmental factors especially elevation with effect on climate factors is the most effective characteristic on distribution and division of grouping growth forms. As one or many plant species are ecological indicators of specific range elevation.

Studying plant species diversity is vital for knowing and better understanding the relationship between ecological factors and proper management principles. The existence of higher plant species diversity is an indicator of appropriate environmental conditions for deploying diverse species, which in turn lead to the sustainability of plant community in that ecosystem. The goal of current research is investigating the most important factors in the variation of the plant species in Sabzkesh summer rangelands located in Golestan province. In the first step, the data about vegetation and soil respectively in the indicator-regions were collected by random-systematic and Zigzag sampling method. After gathering data, diversity, evenness and richness calculated by using of Shannon Wiener and Pailo indices. In addition, in this stage counting plant species number per area unit was done by means of PAST software. Then, by PC-ORD 5 software major ecological groups and the most effective edaphic and topographical factors in the variation of the ecological groups of species diversity were determined through clustering and ordination analysis (Principal Component Analysis).The result showed that diversity, evenness and richness indices provided valuable information about vegetation response to the environmental variations. In this regard, factors such as elevation, pH, N, P and clay of soil had the most important role in the variation of plant species diversity of ecological groups in the studied region. Moreover, in the region under study plant-distribution-pattern with rank-abundance model indicated that the plant species of the region were compatible with Log-normal pattern therefore, the plant species in the studied region almost were out of stress.