Classification of forest and shrubland vegetation in Mediterranean Turkey

Questions What are the main vegetation types of forest and shrubland vegetation at the alliance level in Mediterranean Turkey? What is their syntaxonomical position? Can we integrate them into the European vegetation classification system? Which environmental factors are the main drivers of the floristic differentiation of vegetation types? Location Southern and western Turkey. Methods We collected 4,717 vegetation plots of forest and shrubland vegetation in Mediterranean Turkey and performed an unsupervised classification of this data set. We described vegetation types based on the classification results, expert knowledge and information from the literature. We defined diagnostic species and prepared distribution maps for each vegetation type. To support the interpretation of the vegetation types, we determined the most important environmental variables using canonical correspondence analysis. Results The studied vegetation was divided into 21 types related to three vegetation belts: (a) thermo- and meso-mediterranean, comprising coniferous (Pinus brutia, Pinus pinea) and sclerophyllous forests, as well as macchia, garrigue and phrygana; (b) supra-mediterranean, comprising Pinus nigra subsp. pallasiana forests, thermophilous deciduous forests dominated by various oak species and Ostrya carpinifolia, and forests dominated by temperate species such as Fagus orientalis; and (c) oro-mediterranean, comprising forests and shrublands dominated by Abies cilicica, Cedrus libani, Juniperus excelsa and Juniperus communis subsp. nana. Elevation was identified as the main environmental driver of the vegetation pattern. Among climatic variables, the most important are the mean temperatures (annual and of driest, coldest, and warmest quarters), minimum temperature of winter, precipitation of warmest and driest quarters and precipitation seasonality. These factors indicate the decreasing effect of the Mediterranean climate with increasing elevation. Conclusions The vegetation of Mediterranean Turkey is arranged along climatic gradients depending on elevation and the distance from the Mediterranean Sea. Most vegetation types in this area correspond to the syntaxa accepted in EuroVegChecklist, while others were described as new

The biological activities of Arabis alpina L. subsp. brevifolia (DC.) Cullen against food pathogens

In this study, in vitro biological activities of both methanol and ethanol extracts of Arabis alpina subsp. brevifolia were investigated. Also, the phenolic components of this plant was examined in this study. The extracts were tested against the eight strains of food pathogens for their antimicrobial activities by utilizing minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and disc diffusion assay. The non-enzymatic antioxidant activities were determined according to scavenging of the free radical 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH). The phenolic compounds were analyzed by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The main component was ellagic acid for the methanol extract of stem-leaf, rutin for the ethanol extract of stem-leaf, and 2,5-dihydroxybenzoic acid for the methanol and ethanol extracts of fruit-flower. The ethanolic extracts of leaves revealed antibacterial activities against Salmonella Typhimurium (7 mm) while the ethanolic extracts of flowers demonstrated no activity against the test pathogens. The methanolic extracts of leaf-flower showed antibacterial activities against S. Typhimurium (7 mm). No activity was observed against C. albicans. The MIC value for four test bacteria was 13000 μg/mL. The ethanol extracts of A. alpina subsp. brevifolia exhibited the highest DPPH inhibition (76%). This study showed that A. alpina subsp. brevifolia possesses antioxidant and antimicrobial activities