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“Introduction Regional and local endemic plant species account for a considerable proportion of the world’s plant diversity and, due to their limited geographic and habitat range, many endemics face considerable extinction risk. It is crucial for their conservation to understand which factors influence endemic species richness. While there is extensive literature on the relationship between species richness and environmental factors (such as Selleckchem MK0683 soil, elevation,

climate, land use, etc.) considerably less is known about the effect of these factors on endemic species richness (Willerslev et al. 2002; Ackerman et al. 2007). There are documented examples of the lack of congruence in the spatial pattern of total species richness with the richness of endemic or rare species (Orme et al. 2005; Lamoreux et HSP targets al. 2006; Mazaris et al. 2008). This mismatch may reflect differences in recent environmental and palaeobotanical factors driving endemic species richness or biodiversity in general. Most of the studies that have examined endemism on islands focused on oceanic islands, where endemism rates are particularly high (Groombridge 1992; Davis et al. 1994). Meanwhile, continental shelf islands sensu Whittaker and Fernandez-Palacios (2007), disconnected from each other and the mainland by rising sea level, provide perhaps the best natural laboratories to study the effects of geographical isolation on allopatric speciation via selection and/or genetic drift. Such continental islands allow insights into

the evolution, distribution, colonization and dispersal of plant species and GSK1904529A order populations. The Aegean is a continental archipelago Urease which has experienced continuous human presence over the past several millennia. It has been the subject of biogeographical investigation since the first half of the twentieth century (Rechinger 1950; Rechinger and Rechinger-Moser 1951). As a result, the flora, endemism and phytogeography in the Aegean region are relatively well known (e.g., Greuter 1970, 1972; Runemark 1971a; Snogerup and Snogerup 1987; Strid 1996). These studies in the Aegean document the existence (a) of endemic relict species with no close relatives in the present flora and with a long paleobotanical history and (b) of endemic species that evolved comparatively recently and chiefly by non-adaptive radiation (Runemark 1969, 1970).