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The north western Atlas Mountains (Béchar region) act as refugia for relict populations of many species which highlights their interest as priority areas for conservation. Further work since the beginning of the last century has been difficult because of restricted access in a military area with long-standing border conflicts. This paper aims to analyse the temporal dynamics of the vegetation communities, to assess the floristic diversity of one of those isolated djebels, Djebel Antar, and to contribute to the knowledge of the conservation status of the species found. Surveys from 1925,1951 (published data) and 2017 (fieldwork) were interpreted and investigations were carried out on honey harvesting, production, and marketing in the Benzireg area to better understand and contribute to the development of beekeeping. A high proportion of endemic and very rare species was found. A tendency towards the homogenisation of the flora was detected with a decrease in plant diversity. Beekeeping is being tested as a means of enhancing biodiversity and contributing to the fight against vegetation degradation by reducing pastoral pressure. Djebel Antar retains its function as a refuge for biodiversity and may play an important role in conservation measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study models potential regions for Argan tree plantations in Algeria using the MaxEnt approach, taking into account the sites of successful plantations at national level. There has been exhaustive sampling of 45 sites of plantations, with results collected over three years, 2021, 2022 and 2023. Current climate data were used from the Worldclim database (version 2.0). The results obtained indicate that the north-western regions of the country, the eastern and central coasts, are highly suitable (≥75%), but the desert and steppe regions are weakly suitable (<25%). Therefore, a suitable bioclimatic environment for planting argan trees (with at least 50% probability) depends on a minimum temperature of 2.5 to 6.5°C and annual precipitation of 160 to 1,400 mm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]