Exploring plant diversity and aesthetic service of mountain and plain landscapes in semiarid ecosystems

Aesthetic services convey express people’s opinion about natural word and are crucial to the planning of biodiversity-related environmental protection. This study presents a comprehensive approach for quantifying the aesthetic services provided by landscapes using integrated plant traits in Iran’s semiarid Iranian ecosystems. Using the opinion of expert, the significance of each plant trait for aesthetic services was examined. According to the structure equation model, the most important traits for a species’ ability to provide aesthetic services were flower, leaf, fruit, crown, and stem respectively (p < 0.01). The weighted traits and the frequency of observed species in field data were integrated to quantify aesthetic services provided by plant communities A strong synergy relationship existed between aesthetic services and forbs diversity in semiarid ecosystems (p < 0.001). The findings showed that the plain had less potential to supply aesthetic services than the mountain landscape which is a hotspot plant diversity with twice as much potential (p < 0.05). The approach described in this study, which is based on the quantification of aesthetic services and combined with biodiversity, helps to alter the way that nature is used and to advance conservation efforts, taking into account the crucial requirement for human participation in conservation plans.