Tulips can be found growing in many of the temperate mountainous areas of Eurasia. As we know from previous work, Central Asia is the most species-diverse region, yet many tulips are found in Iran, Turkey and the Caucasus as well. Nonetheless, there is another corner of the world that has several exciting and recently described species, somewhere with an intriguing history, stunning scenery, yet often ecologically overlooked. I am, of course, talking about the Balkans. This area has seen dramatic geopolitical change in the past forty years, with countries and borders changing frequently. Today, the Balkan peninsula is made up of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and parts of Croatia, Greece, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, and Turkey. The small and young nation of Kosovo sits right at the centre of tulip diversity in the region. Recently we teamed up with Associate Professor Avni Hajdari at the University of Prishtina in Kosovo to begin to understand Balkan tulip diversity more and how it fits into the broader tulip picture.
The Balkans are a European biodiversity hotspot, characterized by a distinct range of organisms that inhabit diverse natural habitats, which are a result various geomorphological, climatic, hydrological and soil conditions. It is also a melting pot of cultural, linguistic, and religious diversity, making the region not only a unique area for science but also for culture, history, economics, and tourism.
Dr. Avni Hajdari, University of Prishtina, Kosovo
Our work is focused on a distinct complex of species. A species complex is a group of species that are genetically, morphologically, and biogeographically similar. It is therefore difficult to delineate between them given current evidence. They often are a grouping that is known to require further research to clarify species concepts hence our efforts to carry out this work. Our complex encompasses the species surrounding Tulipa scardica, which includes Tulipa albanica, Tulipa serbica, Tulipa kosovarica, and Tulipa luanica. There are also other species in this region which are fascinating and beautiful. Yet, many of these span much broader areas than the Balkans, explicitly Tulipa sylvestris, Tulipa biflora, and Tulipa undulatifolia. They are therefore not unique to the region unlike the scardica complex. In spite of that, there is another taxon that is unambiguously different and exclusive to the region, Tulipa hungarica.
In fact, Tulipa hungarica was, in 1882, the first regional endemic tulip species to be described from in and around the Balkans. This species was named from plant material collected in, what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but today is part of Romania. This species can still be found growing naturally in Bulgaria and Greece. It can also be found in areas of Romania, although populations there are thought to consist of naturalized plants and therefore the species is not truly native to this country. In fact, unfortunately, it is thought that this species has become extinct across large areas of its natural range on the Balkan peninsula.
Then, in 1923, a new tulip species, Tulipa scardica, was described from a population found in southern Yugoslavia, a country that then spanned a large proportion of the Balkan peninsula. Interestingly, Tulipa scardica remains the only tulip described from the period when Yugoslavia was this large a country. This original Tulipa scardica population is now situated in North Macedonia and the species range covers areas across south-eastern Kosovo, North Macedonia and northern Greece. Two of these three countries didn’t even exist when the plant was first described!
The Balkans region is rich in wild tulip species. Recently there has been a range of new species described, based on the morphological characteristics, although many these characters are very similar across species and many species show phenotypic plasticity.
Dr. Avni Hajdari, University of Prishtina, Kosovo
In 1991 the breakup of Yugoslavia formally began, and the political geography of this region would change and remain turbulent for the following few decades. The republics of Croatia, Slovenia, and Macedonia (now North Macedonia) gained independence in 1991, with the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina following in their footsteps in 1992. Serbia and Montenegro remained part of The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and these nation states remained united like this until 2006. During this period of time, specifically in the year 1997, a new tulip species, Tulipa serbica, was described from flowers found in an area of this Federal Republic, which today is the Serbia-Kosovo border region.
In 2006, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia separated into the two independent states of Montenegro and Serbia, bringing an end to the Yugoslavian nation. Then, Kosovo which was under the administration of the United Nations Interim Mission in Kosovo since 1999, gained independence in 2008. This small Balkan territory became Kosovo, one of the youngest countries in the world. Since the independence of Kosovo, three new species of tulip have been described, with Tulipa albanica in 2010, Tulipa kosovarica in 2012, and the most recent, Tulipa luanica, in 2015. The first from Albania, and the following two from Kosovo. This has left the Balkan peninsula with six currently extant species and, amazingly, four of these can be found growing within Kosovo.
In the region there is a trend of naming wild tulips species after various countries. We started this new collaboration with the plan of using genetic tools to solidify species’ concepts and to ensure that species named in the region have reasonable evidence to support this status.
Dr. Avni Hajdari, University of Prishtina, Kosovo
Generally, the Balkan’s specific species have small ranges; three of the six Balkan species are endemics, only Tulipa hungarica, Tulipa serbica and Tulipa scardica grow in more than one country. Notably, both T. serbica and T. scardica are only found in small border areas of most of the countries in their range. Whilst tulips generally do not appear on the IUCN Red List, only five out of around 88 species have reports, two of the six from the Balkans are represented. Tulipa hungarica is reported as Near Threatened whilst Tulipa albanica is documented as Critically Endangered. Given that the unreported species grow in similar environments and have similarly small ranges, it seems likely that some of these may also be Threatened, yet not enough evidence exists to confirm this.
Crucially however, and as we previously stated, morphologically these species are known to be extremely similar and distinguishing between them can be difficult, especially as many show different colour forms. This raises the question – are there truly this many species in the region or should we be treating them as fewer or even a single species? Obviously, changes in the taxonomy greatly affect the conservation status of these plants. This is where our new collaboration comes in. We are now working to assess whether we can solidify the species’ concepts in this region using Next-Generation Sequencing tools which offer improved genetic resolution, and samples collected from the wild in Kosovo and Albania. We hope that we can bring some tulip species-stability to a region that has so recently changed so much.
Could you tell the difference between these species?
In search of wild tulips 