Effects of landscape, land use and vegetation on bird community composition and diversity in Inner Anatolian steppes

Date

2014-01-01

Author

Ambarlı, Didem
Bilgin, Cemal Can

Metadata

Show full item record

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Item Usage Stats

161
views

0
downloads

We present here the first systematic study on drivers of bird community composition and diversity in Anatolian steppes (Turkey), an environment important for populations of threatened grassland birds yet underrepresented in conservation networks. We focused on one million hectares of mountainous land with a long and varied land use history, and collected quantitative data on breeding birds as well as environmental, vegetation, landscape and land use parameters at 32 sites. Data were analyzed by canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) and hierarchical partitioning to understand avian community structure and reveal major drivers of observed patterns. Bird communities in high-altitude steppes of inner Turkey showed patterns in species richness and community composition that were best explained by an altitudinal gradient and by human activities. Steppe birds occurred most often in cropland abandoned 20-50 years ago with good coverage of erect leafy plants while overall avian diversity tended to increase with reduced grazing pressure and with nearby presence of rural settlements. CCA results revealed a contrast between highly heterogeneous anthropogenic environments in warmer and drier land with woody elements, and treeless steppes at higher elevations that were, apart from transhumant grazing, little influenced by human activities. The former sites were characterized by the occurrence of several grassland birds along with a variety of generalist species, some of which required the presence of trees, while the latter sites were less diverse but usually with a higher proportion of steppe-dependent birds in their composition. To conserve steppes for birds, we recommend as key actions to maintain the current landscape mosaic, sustain low to moderate grazing levels and use our findings in developing a network of protected areas.

Subject Keywords

Agronomy and Crop Science, Ecology, Animal Science and Zoology

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/37893

Journal

AGRICULTURE ECOSYSTEMS & ENVIRONMENT

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2013.11.006

Collections

Department of Biology, Article

Suggestions

OpenMETU
Core

Conflicts between humans and wolf : a study Bozdağ, Konya province, Turkey Tuğ, Senem; Bilgin, Cemal Can; Department of Biology (2005) Canis lupus is one of the most important but least studied species of Turkish fauna, however, livestock depredation and recently increased number of publications on attacks on humans intensifies human-wildlife conflict. In this study, wolf depredation is studied in Bozdağ in the province of Konya where conflicts between wolves and livestock holders are well known. The study site holds >50,000 sheep and covers 9 villages and a small town. A total of 13 shepherds are interviewed in 2004 and 2005 to reveal hus...
Genetic relationships among perennial and annual Cicer species growing in Turkey as revealed by allozymes Sudupak, MA; Kence, Aykut (Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2004-05-01) Allozyme polymorphisms were used to assess genetic variation and relationships among ten Cicer species ( annuals and perennials) growing in Turkey. Using seven enzyme systems, 12 putative scorable loci were detected and surveyed for polymorphism in an accession collection including wild and cultivated forms. Variation was generally low within accessions and species, but common between species. Cluster analysis based on the pairwise genetic distance coefficients (Nei 1978) among accessions and species using ...
Impact of biased sex ratio on the genetic diversity, structure, and differentiation of Populus nigra (European black poplar) Yelmen, Burak; Değirmenci, Funda Ö.; Kaya, Zeki (Canadian Science Publishing, 2020-10-01) Effective population size is a crucial concept of conservation biology. It is reduced by biased sex ratio, consequently causing loss of genetic variation. To evaluate genetic diversity related to gender, and investigate the possible effects of biased sex ratio, we analyzed available microsatellite DNA markers from 120 samples of Populus nigra L. (European black poplar) originating from five geographical regions in Turkey. Using 12 microsatellite markers, we detected 60 clones of the same genotype, out of 12...
Exceptional maternal lineage diversity in brown bears (Ursus arctos) from Turkey Cilingir, F. Gozde; Peksen, Cigdem Akin; Ambarli, Huseyin; Beerli, Peter; Bilgin, Cemal Can (Oxford University Press (OUP), 2016-02-01) The genetic diversity and phylogeography of maternal lineages in Ursus arctos Linnaeus, 1758 (the brown bear) have been studied extensively over the last two decades; however, sampling has largely been limited to the northern Holarctic, and was possibly biased towards lineages that recolonized the vast expanses of the north as the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) ended. Here we report the genetic diversity and phylogeography of U.arctos from Turkey based on 35 non-invasive samples, including five from captive ind...
Genetic relationships among perennial and annual Cicer species growing in Turkey assessed by AFLP fingerprinting Sudupak, MA; Akkaya, Mahinur; Kence, A (Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2004-03-01) AFLP markers were used to assess genetic relationships among Cicer species with distribution in Turkey. Genetic distances were computed among 47 Cicer accessions representing four perennial and six annual species including chickpea, using 306 positions on AFLP gels. AFLP-based grouping of species revealed two clusters, one of which includes three perennial species, Cicer montbretii, Cicer isauricum and Cicer anatolicum, while the other cluster consists of two subclusters, one including one perennial, Cicer ...

Citation Formats

D. Ambarlı and C. C. Bilgin, “Effects of landscape, land use and vegetation on bird community composition and diversity in Inner Anatolian steppes,” AGRICULTURE ECOSYSTEMS & ENVIRONMENT, pp. 37–46, 2014, Accessed: 00, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://hdl.handle.net/11511/37893.