ORIGINAL ARTICLE Growth dynamics of endemic Dracaena cinnabari Balf. f. of Socotra Island suggest essential elements for a conservation strategy Petr Maděra 1 & Hana Habrová 1 & Martin Šenfeldr 1 & Irena Kholová 1 & Samuel Lvončík 1 & Lenka Ehrenbergerová 1 & Matěj Roth 1 & Nadezhda Nadezhdina 1 & Petr Němec 1 & Jonathan Rosenthal 2 & Jindřich Pavliš 1 Received: 4 August 2018 /Accepted: 8 November 2018 # Plant Science and Biodiversity Centre, Slovak Academy of Sciences 2018 Abstract Dragon’ s blood tree, a flagship endemic species of Socotra, is threatened with extinction due to lack of natural regeneration, likely because of goat herbivory and/or climatic factors. Loss of dragon’ s blood tree would result in loss of other native flora, heightening the importance of formulating a conservation strategy for it. Although artificial afforestation might be used to offset the lack of natural regeneration, it would have to overcome the same threats faced by naturally occurring seedlings. Moreover, there is no published information on the growth dynamics of seedlings in plantations in situ on Socotra. To fill this information gap, we compared seedling growth (total plant height, leaves number, stem height, stem diameter) over an 8-year period after planting at three sites that differed in the degree to which goats were excluded and in whether they were watered regularly over the period. In addition to developing a new classification of the growth stages, which will enable better tracking of population dynamics, we found that continuous goat exclusion was necessary to prevent seedling mortality. Also, although seedling growth overall was slow, growth parameters of regularly irrigated seedlings ranged from 156% to 446% of those not regularly watered, suggesting that this treatment can speed seedlings’ escape from goat browsing. For the dragon’ s blood tree and likely for other taxa within this group, extremely slow growth and long generation times suggest that conservation and restoration efforts will require a commitment to active management that will last decades, rather than a short-term approach. Keywords Afforestation . Browsing . dragon’ s blood tree . Regeneration . Semi-arid tropical zone . Soqotra * Petr Maděra petrmad@mendelu.cz Hana Habrová habrova@mendelu.cz Martin Šenfeldr martin.senfeldr@mendelu.cz Irena Kholová ikholova@krnap.cz Samuel Lvončík samuel.lvoncik@mendelu.cz Lenka Ehrenbergerová nenidoma@seznam.cz Matěj Roth naconazev@seznam.cz Nadezhda Nadezhdina nadezda.nadezdina@mendelu.cz Petr Němec petr.nemec@mendelu.cz Jonathan Rosenthal elpuffino@gmail.com Jindřich Pavliš jindra.pavlis@centrum.cz 1 Department of Forest Botany, Dendrology and Geobiocoenology, Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology, Mendel University in Brno, Zemědělská 1, 613 00 Brno, Czech Republic 2 Ecological Research Institute, Kingston, New York, USA Biologia https://doi.org/10.2478/s11756-018-0152-0