The Guardian of High Mountains

Maybe you are asking yourself who is the guardian of high mountains.

Who can tolerate the harsh climatic conditions of those locations?

Those guardians are trees from the genus “Juniperus” we call it in Lebanon “Lezzeb.”  Juniperus are evergreen trees and shrubs that can reach 20m in height. They are long-lived trees that can live for more than 2000 years. In Lebanon, there are five Juniperus species, J. excelsa, J. polycarpos, J. oxycedrus, J. drupacea, and J. foetidissima. Juniper forests are found at high altitudes on the two Lebanese mountain chains “Mount Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon” from 1000m till 2900m.

Those trees are considered as one of the essential features of the Lebanese forests due to its high tolerance to the harsh environment such as drought, a wide range of temperatures and low nutriment substrate. Their great adaptation to extreme environmental factors gave Junipers high plasticity towards habitats, wherein some locations any other tree cannot live.

Junipers constitute an important integrated natural system; it is the home and nutriment source for many birds and animals, its rooting system protects the soil from erosion and interacts with the soil microorganisms. For all those reasons, Junipers have received close attention for reforestation and ecological restoration activities such as in Iran, Turkey, and Lebanon.

In the frame of my doctorate thesis accomplished at Saint Joseph University of Beirut (Lebanon) and Paris Sud University (France), I studied the genetic characteristics of Juniperus, and our results showed that this genus is exceptional compared to other conifers.

Those genetic features might be one of the important reasons giving juniper trees their high adaptation to extreme environmental factors.
Our results will enhance the knowledge of the exceptional genetic composition of Juniperus and will help the foresters and the scientists working on the ecological restoration to use wisely this species in their restoration activities.

Please visit those references for more information on our discoveries in the world of Juniperus;

Perla Farhat, Oriane Hidalgo, Thierry Robert, Sonja SiljakYakovlev, Ilia J. Leitch, Robert Adams and Magda Bou Dagher Kharrat (2019): Polyploidy in the conifer genus Juniperus: an unexpectedly high rate, Frontiers in Plant Science, DOI: 10.3389/ fpls.2019.00676.

Perla Farhat, Sonja Siljak-Yakovlev, Robert P. Adams, Magda Bou Dagher Kharrat and Thierry Robert (2019): Genome size variation and polyploidy in the geographical range of Juniperus sabina L. (Cupressaceae), Botany Letters, DOI: 10.1080/23818107.2019.1613262

Author: Perla Farhat – PhD Biodiversity Conservation Initiative – Lebanon Faculty of Science USJ - Paris Sud University – Jouzour Loubnan