Tulipa uniflora

This species is threatened in parts of its range by poor pasture management practices and overgrazing from livestock. It is difficult to know how extensive this threat is across the distribution of this species, but certainly occurs in parts of its Russian range. This species is also threatened by the impacts of climate change. Changing weather patterns are predicted to cause significant areas of tulip habitat to disappear in the future as well as lead to the forced movement of some species' subpopulations to higher altitudes (Wilson et al. 2021), although the direct impacts on this species are uncertain. The bulb of this species has been reportedly used as a food source in Mongolia where this is leading to population declines (Nyambayar et al. 2011). Across Kazakhstan subpopulations are not really threatened, whilst in China large declines have been reported in recent years (BGCI 2022), including the extinction of the type location of Tulipa mongolica, now a synonym of T. uniflora (POWO 2022), due to heavy grazing pressure (Zhao 2003).

This species is reported as Vulnerable in Mongolia and China (BGCI 2022) and is recognised as Threatened in Kazakhstan (Baitulin 2014), whilst in Russia it is in the red book of several regions. This species occurs in the Altai Tavan Bogd National Park in Mongolia and likely also the Munkhkhairkhan National Park, whilst in Russia it is known from many protected areas including the Krasny Yar State Nature Reserve, Altai State Natural Biosphere Reserve, Sayano-Shushensky State Nature Reserve, Daursky Nature Reserve, and Azas State Nature Reserve. This species is recorded in 12 ex situ collections.