Adil GÜNER, Vehbi ESER - optima

RARE OAK FORESTS IN TURKEY:
CHARACTERISATION AND THREAT ASSESSMENT
Emin U�URLU 1 Rosario G. GAVILAN 2
1 Celal Bayar University, Science and Art Faculty, Department of Biology, Manisa, Turkey,
emin.ugurlu@bayar.edu.tr, ugurlu@yahoo.com
2 Departamento de Biologia Vegetal II, Facultad de Farmacia , Universidad Complutense, E-28040, Madrid, SPAIN.
rgavilan@farm.ucm.es, lazaroa@farm.ucm.es
Eighteen species of native oaks grow in Turkey. As a group, these oaks are adapted to a wide
variety of habitats, from wet riparian zones to dry rocky hillsides, forming extended forest. The
land area is 780,576 km 2 . Total forest area is 211,000 km 2 , of which 30 % belongs to oak
forest.(nearly 65 000 km 2 ). Oak forest covers a great part (8,3 %) of the Anatolian plateau, from
west to east and north to south, in an altitudinal range from 20 m to 2200 m, growing from
thermo-Mediterranean to Oro - Mediterranean bioclimatic belt . Some species are widely
distributed, while others have a much more limited range, like Quercus petraea subsp.
pinnatiloba, Quercus aucheri or Quercus vulcanica. They are endemic from Turkey and they
need conservation priorities, not only the species themselves, but also the forest they form,
representing the potential vegetation of such territories. Most vegetation studies on these forests
have been made from a phytosociological perspective (Ad�güzel,Vural 1995, Akman et al. 1978,
Akman, �larslan 1983, Behçet, 1994, Bekat, Seçmen 1984, Duman 1985, 1995, Ekim, Akman
1991……..Vural et al. Yarc�, 2002, Yurdakulol et al. 1998), but present knowledge on these
types of vegetation is sparse and in many cases not very accurate, so we are developing a project
to address some of the main aspects of the Oak communities in Turkey, that could serve for a
better understanding of the Turkish landscape and to give the basis for a better way to conserve
them:
1) We have compiled a database of all Oak vegetation relevés in Turkey. Data has been obtained
from publish and unpublished data, but also forest are being sampled during the spring of 2008
and 2009.
2) To get a classification of all vegetation types, we have carried out different multivariate
analyses that show the floristic separation of them and the general biogeographical pattern
distribution.
3) A part of the information extracted from the multivariate analyses can also be explained by
climatic features, so we pretend to get the climatic envelopes that best define any of these
vegetation types.
Keywords: Vegetation, Quercus, Multivariate Analyses, Turkey
7
19
Oral Lectures