PHYTOGEOGRAPHIC VERSUS POLITICAL BORDERS: EUROPEAN UNION'S LIFELONG LEARNING PROGRAMME TOWARDS A COMMON CONCEPT IN THE EAST AEGEAN (E. GREECE, W. TURKEY)

This article presents a bilateral cooperation between School of Biology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece) and Department of Biology, Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University (Turkey), under the auspices of the European Lifelong Learning Programme-Erasmus. An Erasmus placement grant was provided to a doctoral student of Aristotle University, for the study of the affinities of Labiatae plants between Chios Island [East Aegean Islands (EAI), Greece] and the adjacent Cesme-Karaburun Peninsula (Anatolia, Turkey). The study resulted in close affinities of the Labiatae in Chios and Cesme-Karaburun [high similarity indices, similar chorological spectra, and occurrence of narrowly distributed species (Anatolia-EAI-Balkan endemics) in both regions]. Additionally, extensive field work throughout Cesme-Karaburun Peninsula gave 11 new records for this region, meeting the first objective of the European Plant Conservation Strategy regarding documentation of plant diversity, in Anatolia, one of the biodiversity hot-spots of the Mediterranean basin. The article concludes with the benefits for a doctoral student through such cross-border mobility cooperations and further attempts to think towards a common concept in the East Aegean, where both the East Aegean Islands and the adjacent Anatolian mainland will be studied as one phytogeographic entity. This cooperation is the first mutual step of Greece and Turkey for a joint study on the phytogeography of the East Aegean, a region, where political borders are of no phytogeographic sense.