Ecología y conservación de centaurium somedanum M. Laínz (gentianaceae), planta endémica de la Cordillera Cantábrica (España)

Abstract

Centaurium somedanum is a cantabrian endemism, with less than twenty localities known in the western Cantabrian Mountains. In order to assess its conservation status, a short-term study has been developed, by applying a Basic Study and an Habitat Integrated Study, which have defined the habitat for the plant, number of populations and some demographic information. The results from the study have confirmed the extinction of the plant in some localities where it had been recorded. C. somedanum is a short-lived chamaephyte plant, limited to fourteen populations at present, and only four of them exceed five hundred adult individuals. They occur on very specific habitats, in the surroundings of calcareous hard water springs, between 500 and 1600 meters of altitude. The specific nature and scarcity of its habitat are the main reasons of the rareness and threat of this species. Some other rare species and plant communities from Cantabrian Mountains share with C. somedanum the need of this type of spring communities conservation, which are currently under different threats.