Different Ecological Niches of Poisonous Aristolochia clematitis in Central and Marginal Distribution Ranges-Another Contribution to a Better Understanding of Balkan Endemic Nephropathy

Ivan Brzić; Magdalena Brener; Andraž Čarni; Renata Ćušterevska; Borna Čulig; Tetiana Dziuba; Valentin Golub; Irina Irimia; Bojan Jelaković; Ali Kavgacı; Mirjana Krstivojević Ćuk; Daniel Krstonošić; Vladimir Stupar; Zlatko Trobonjača; Željko Škvorc

doi:10.3390/plants12173022

Different Ecological Niches of Poisonous Aristolochia clematitis in Central and Marginal Distribution Ranges-Another Contribution to a Better Understanding of Balkan Endemic Nephropathy

Plants (Basel). 2023 Aug 22;12(17):3022. doi: 10.3390/plants12173022.

Authors

Ivan Brzić^{1

2}, Magdalena Brener³, Andraž Čarni^{4

5}, Renata Ćušterevska⁶, Borna Čulig⁷, Tetiana Dziuba⁸, Valentin Golub⁹, Irina Irimia¹⁰, Bojan Jelaković¹¹, Ali Kavgacı¹², Mirjana Krstivojević Ćuk¹³, Daniel Krstonošić³, Vladimir Stupar¹⁴, Zlatko Trobonjača², Željko Škvorc³

Affiliations

¹ Municipality of Bebrina, 35254 Bebrina, Croatia.
² School of Medicine, University of Rijeka, Braće Branchetta 20/1, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia.
³ Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology, University of Zagreb, Svetošimunska 23, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
⁴ Institute of Biology, Research Center of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Novi Trg 2, SI 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
⁵ School for Viticulture and Enology, University of Nova Gorica, Vipavska 13, SI 5000 Nova Gorica, Slovenia.
⁶ Institute of Biology, Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, 1000 Skopje, North Macedonia.
⁷ Faculty of Medicine, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, Josipa Huttlera 4, 31000 Osijek, Croatia.
⁸ M.G. Kholodny Institute of Botany, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 01004 Kyiv, Ukraine.
⁹ Institute of Ecology of the Volga Basin, Samara Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 445003 Togliatti, Russia.
¹⁰ Faculty of Biology, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași, 20A Carol I Blvd., 700506 Iași, Romania.
¹¹ Department of Nephrology, Hypertension, Dialysis and Transplantation, University Hospital Center Zagreb, School of Medicine University of Zagreb, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
¹² Burdur Food Agriculture and Livestock Vocational School, Burdur Mehmet Akif Ersoy University, 15030 Burdur, Turkey.
¹³ Department of Biology and Ecology, Faculty of Science, University of Novi Sad, Trg Dositeja Obradovića 2, 21000 Novi Sad, Serbia.
¹⁴ Department of Forest Ecology, Faculty of Forestry, University of Banja Luka, S. Stepanovića 75A, 78000 Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Abstract

Aristolochia clematitis L. is a perennial herbaceous plant distributed throughout Europe, Asia Minor and Caucasus. It has been used as a medicinal plant since antiquity but not in recent times because it contains poisonous aristolochic acid, causing progressive kidney failure. The aim of this work was to study Aristolochia clematitis ecology on the basis of vegetation plots from the European Vegetation Archive, and to investigate the differentiation of its ecological niche using a co-occurrence-based measure of ecological specialization (ESI). The ecological niche was studied on three spatial scales: on the entire distribution area, its differentiation across 200 × 200 km grid cells and the differences between three central and three marginal regions. Our results suggest that Aristolochia clematitis has a very broad ecological niche occurring in a range of different habitats and climatic conditions, with a trend of a niche width decrease with the distance from the geographical center. The plant prefers more stable communities with less anthropogenic influence moving towards the margin of the distribution area. Specialization towards the marginal area is a result of evolutionary history, which refers to the recent anthropogenically induced spread from its original home range. A high incidence of Aristolochia clematitis in the vegetation of arable lands and market gardens as well as anthropogenic herbaceous vegetation in the distribution center corresponds to the geographical incidence of Balkan Endemic Nephropathy.

Keywords: ecological specialization index; environmental conditions; ethnoecology; niche width; poisonous plant; traditional agroecology praxis; vegetation plots.

Grants and funding

This study was partly funded by the Slovenian Research Agency (ARRS P1-0236).