Taxonomic and functional diversity of bird communities of the Anatolian diagonal

Date

2025-5-28

Author

Gürol, Ilgın Ertan

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Birds, integral to ecosystem functioning, are subjected to biodiversity crisis driven by anthropogenic stressors, including land cover conversion, pollution, and climate change. The Anatolian Diagonal running across Türkiye, is located at the convergence of three continents and biodiversity hotspots. Yet, it is relatively understudied in terms of avian communities. Consequently, this research elucidates avian community composition and diversity from both taxonomic and functional perspectives at three spatial scales. I employed hierarchical clustering, indicator species analysis, ordination, linear modeling, and rarefaction-extrapolation methods to analyze bird data collected from 782 transect surveys, together with 12 environmental variables and 14 functional traits. Hierarchical clustering identified seven different avian communities along the Anatolian Diagonal. Out of the 199 birds, 14 indicator species were found for the communities. Ordination demonstrated that avian communities are separated by habitat types and climatic variables. Species with greater body mass and hand-wing index were mainly associated with the community of steppic landscapes. Linear models highlighted that greater habitat diversity and productivity were associated with a substantial increase in avian alpha diversity. Turnover was the main component of the beta diversity, reflecting species replacements across sites. The diminished beta diversity in the highly modified agricultural landscapes signaled pronounced biotic homogenization. Rarefaction-extrapolation and functional gamma hypervolume calculations revealed that the avian communities of heterogeneous landscapes, habitat mosaics with riparian vegetation, and steppic landscapes were associated with the notably high levels of gamma diversity. The findings underscore the critical necessity of enhancing habitat diversity for conserving birds of the region.

Subject Keywords

Biodiversity, Functional traits, Anatolian diagonal, Avian, Ecological communities

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/115102

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Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis