Anadolu çaprazı'nın orta bölümündeki bozkırların biyolojik çeşitliliğini etkileyen faktörler ve bunların doğa korumada kullanımı.

This study aims to find out major factors acting on steppe biodiversity of Inner Anatolia by focusing on one million hectares of mountainous land. Quantitative data on common plants, breeding birds and butterflies as well as environmental and land use data were collected at 33 sites determined by environmental stratification. Data has been analyzed with Spearman’s rank correlation, canonical correspondence analysis, detrended correspondence analysis, two-way indicator species analysis and hierarchical partitioning. Results show that elevation, current grazing intensity, distance to woodlands and arable lands are the main determinants of richness and diversity. Other important factors are soil Magnesium and organic matter for plants; local heterogeneity and shrub/tree density for birds; plant richness and mud-puddling sites or wind shelters attracting butterflies. Altitude and grazing intensity have negative effects on biodiversity whereas soil Magnesium and proximity to other vegetation types have positive effects. In sites with more than 90% herbaceous coverage, shrub/tree density is a good indicator for the richness patterns of all groups. The richest sites are low mountain shrubby steppes close to woodlands and arable lands, ploughed 30-100 years ago but then abandoned and experienced light or no grazing afterwards. Six major plant communities are distinguished by gypsum bedrock, altitude and years since land abandonment. Four main bird assemblages are differentiated with landscape and local heterogeneity and composition and wood density of the sites. Various factors act on richness and diversity patterns on steppes, differing for species groups and assemblages. Conservation actions should encompass conservation priority species, represent different species assemblages, consider all major factors mentioned above especially landscape and local heterogeneity including different seral stages and sustaining conservation through nature-friendly land use. Planning afforestation in the way not to destroy rich steppes and building awareness on steppes as a value are important conservation actions.Ph.D. - Doctoral Progra

Step(pe) up! Raising the profile of the Palaearctic natural grasslands

Peter, Torok/0000-0002-4428-3327; Dengler, Jurgen/0000-0003-3221-660XWOS: 000386500700001Palaearctic steppes are primary grasslands dominating the landscape of the Eurasian Grassland Belt from Central and Eastern Europe to Northern China across the temperate zone of Eurasia. We also include structurally and floristically similar habitats in North Africa, Anatolia, and Iran. The biota of the steppes are diverse, including many endemic species. As a result of the high rate of anthropogenic conversion and widespread degradation, the Palaearctic steppes have become one of the most endangered terrestrial biomes of the world. These facts underline the importance of sustaining landscape-scale biodiversity in steppes and stress the necessity of their conservation and restoration. Literature about the ecology, biodiversity, and conservation of Palaearctic steppes is not easily accessible for an international audience. Therefore, summarising the current state of knowledge as well as knowledge gaps is very timely. This Special Issue on "Palaearctic steppes: ecology, biodiversity and conservation", comprises 17 research papers from many different regions throughout the biome, as well as a broad review synthesising current knowledge

Insights from regional and short-term biodiversity monitoring datasets are valuable: a reply to Daskalova et al. 2021

Reports of major losses in insect biodiversity have stimulated an increasing interest in temporal population changes. Existing datasets are often limited to a small number of study sites, few points in time, a narrow range of land-use intensities and only some taxonomic groups, or they lack standardised sampling. While new monitoring programs have been initiated, they still cover rather short time periods. Daskalova et al. 2021 (Insect Conservation and Diversity, 14, 1-18) argue that temporal trends of insect populations derived from short time series are biased towards extreme trends, while their own analysis of an assembly of shorter- and longer-term time series does not support an overall insect decline. With respect to the results of Seibold et al. 2019 (Nature, 574, 671–674) based on a 10-year multi-site time series, they claim that the analysis suffers from not accounting for temporal pseudoreplication. Here, we explain why the criticism of missing statistical rigour in the analysis of Seibold et al. (2019) is not warranted. Models that include ‘year’ as random effect, as suggested by Daskalova et al. (2021), fail to detect non-linear trends and assume that consecutive years are independent samples which is questionable for insect time-series data. We agree with Daskalova et al. (2021) that the assembly and analysis of larger datasets is urgently needed, but it will take time until such datasets are available. Thus, short-term datasets are highly valuable, should be extended and analysed continually to provide a more detailed understanding of insect population changes under the influence of global change, and to trigger immediate conservation actions

Do non-native and dominant native species carry a similar risk of invasiveness? A case study for plants in Turkey

Most risk analysis studies in invasion biology have focused on the invasiveness of non-native species, even though some native species also can pose a high risk to the environment and human well-being. This is especially true under current global change, which may cause dominant native species to expand their range of distribution and have substantial effects on the ecosystem. In this study, the risk of invasiveness of five non-native and five native plant species in Turkey was evaluated using a standard risk screening protocol. All ten species selected for screening are known to be invasive in several parts of the world, i.e. non-native Ailanthus altissima, Cuscuta campestris, Phytolacca americana, Robinia pseudoacacia and Sicyos angulatus, and native Cirsium arvense, Hedera helix, Onopordum acanthium, Phragmites australis and Sorghum halepense. The Australian Weed Risk Assessment decision-support tool adapted to Turkey’s geographical and climatic conditions was used for screening the study species based on their biological traits, ecology and management approaches. All species were classified as high-risk, with R. pseudoacacia among non-natives and P. australis among natives achieving the highest scores followed by S. halepense, C. campestris, C. arvense, O. acanthium, P. americana, S. angulatus, A. altissima and H. helix. Based on their risk scores, all non-native species were classified as invasive and all native species as ‘expanding’ for Turkey. An ordination based on the risk scores showed similarities between invasive and expanding species. The outcomes of this study indicate that species can have several risk-related traits resulting in high risk scores irrespective of their origin. Such species can modify their environment and interact with other species with severe consequences for biodiversity. It is argued that dominant species with highly negative environmental and socioeconomic impacts in their habitats should be included in priority lists for management measures irrespective of their origin (i.e. native or non-native). More studies are needed to evaluate the magnitude and prevalence of the present findings for other regions worldwide

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

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

The Palaearctic steppe biome: a new synthesis

Dengler, Jurgen/0000-0003-3221-660X; Peter, Torok/0000-0002-4428-3327WOS: 000386500700002The Palaearctic steppes range from the Mediterranean basin towards China, forming one of the largest continuous terrestrial biomes. The literature on steppe ecology and conservation is vast but scattered and often not available in English. We provide a review of some key topics based on a new definition of steppes, which includes also Mediterranean steppes and alpine rangelands of the Asian Highlands. Revisiting the terrestrial ecoregions of the world, we estimate that the Palaearctic steppe biome extends over ca. 10.5 million km(2). Major chorological regions differ in their macroclimatic niche with a clear distinction between Middle Asia with its winter precipitation and the Central Asian summer-rain regions of the Mongolian plateau and of Tibet. Steppe soils store large amounts of carbon, yet the sequestration potential is debated and depends on land use. Major physiognomic-ecological steppe types include forest-, typical-, desert-, and alpine-steppe, which vary in the importance of grasses, mainly C3 species. The steppes host a specialised fauna, and Middle Asia, Tibet, and especially Mongolia, have large herds of migrating ungulates. The share of pristine and protected sites is low in the steppe regions, with conversion into croplands being the most important land use impact in Europe, Middle Asia, and the Mediterranean, while grazing has a severe impact in some parts of Mongolia and Tibet. There are major gaps in our knowledge on: (1) the effects of climate change on the crucial seasonal patterns; (2) the role of steppe soils in the global carbon budget; and (3) the ecology and distribution of most animal groups except vertebrates.German Research Foundation (DFG)German Research Foundation (DFG); German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF: CAME-PaDeMoS initiative); German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF: GLUES-Kulunda initiative); International Fund for Agricultural Development; BMBF within their Sustainable Land Management funding framework (Project SASCHA) [01LL0906A]; Volkswagen FoundationVolkswagen [A112025]Our sincere thanks go to David Hawksworth for giving us the opportunity to put together an exciting special issue and for his patience during the process. He also provided very helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. We thank Aiko Huckauf for polishing our English and Milan Chytry, Olga Demina, Wanja Mathar, Alireza Naqinezhad, Jens Oldeland, Mustafa Sozen and Yun Wang for providing photos. K.W. extends special thanks to Tatiana Bragina and Ilya Smelyanski from the IUCN Specialist Group on Holarctic steppes; his work feeding into this paper was partly financed by the German Research Foundation (DFG), by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF: CAME-PaDeMoS and GLUES-Kulunda initiatives) and by the International Fund for Agricultural Development. J.K. was funded by the BMBF within their Sustainable Land Management funding framework (Project SASCHA, funding reference 01LL0906A) and by the Volkswagen Foundation (funding reference A112025)

Where forests meet grasslands: Forest-steppes in Eurasia

Despite the ecological, economic and conservation importance of forest-steppes, a continental scale synthesis of this complex ecosystem has been lacking. In a recent review, we compiled scattered knowledge about Eurasian forest-steppes in a new synthesis, proposed a new forest-steppe definition, reviewed how the biogeographic position of this ecosystem is perceived by different authors from different regions, delineated the main regions based on criteria of flora, physiognomy (i.e., vegetation structure), relief, and climate,and explored the conservation importance of forest-steppes. Here we complement some of the key findings of the review and illustrate some topics with further specific examples.(VLID)463075