Günay Çakir

Monitoring thirty years of land cover change: Secondary forest succession in the Artvin Forest planning unit of Northeastern Turkey

Abstract As a major topic in forest ecosystems, determining plant successional changes is crucial to understanding the vegetation dynamics, composition and environmental disturbance of forest landscapes. This study is designed to evaluate the consequences of human and natural impacts on changes in secondary forest succession land cover from 1972 to 2002 in the Artvin Forest Planning Unit, in NE Turkey. This paper also contributes to the development of a framework for effective conservation of biodiversity through forest management plans by using successional stages and land cover types. Secondary forest succession stages and land cover types were determined according to Clementsian theory and mapped with Geographic Information System (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) technologies through aerial photos and high resolution satellite images (IKONOS). The results indicated that the forest area in 1972 and 2002 was 88% and 80%, and the number of forest patches were 106 and 222, respectively. While the total road length in the Forest Planning Unit (FPU) was 67.7 km in 1972, it was 130.0 km in 2002, an increase of 62.3 km. Results show that urbanisation, industrial development and dam construction, together with unregulated forestry activities with clear-cut as well as insect outbreaks, affected the secondary forest succession and fragmented the forest ecosystem in the study area. Determining the secondary forest succession in detail is necessary for the sustainable management of such fragmented forest areas and for the preparation of biodiversity-friendly integrated forest management plans.

Monitoring forest plant biodiversity changes and developing conservation strategies: a study from Camili Biosphere Reserve Area in NE Turkey

This study was carried out in forestland of Camili Biosphere Reserve (CBR) area in NE Turkey. It was designed to evaluate the consequences of disturbances on changes in secondary forest succession from 1985 to 2005 for monitoring forest plant biodiversity changes and developing conservation strategies. The successional stages were mapped using Geographic Information System (GIS), Global Positioning System (GPS), aerial photos and high resolution satellite images (IKONOS). The results showed that stable stage decreased about 77.96% over the last 20-year time period. Although 701.6 ha conifer forests existed in competition and reaction stages in 1985, none existed in 2005. In overall, about 33.23% of the area decreased, 42.36% did not change and 24.41% increased in different seral stages. Consequently, 8.83% of the area decreased as a whole to indicate that the forest has been developing from stable to nudation stage, that is to say, retrogressive succession is going on in the area. Forest structure and its relationship with plant biodiversity along with its changes over time were determined using FRAGSTATS. We also investigated spatio-temporal configuration of six secondary forest successional stages and generated structural diversity measures. These measures revealed that the landscape has been fragmented, posing a danger to lose the important components of plant biodiversity. Sustainable management of such degraded forests is of crucial importance for plant biodiversity conservation. In conclusion, the study contributes to the development of a framework for effective conservation of plant biodiversity through plant biodiversity integrated Multiple Use Forest Management (MUFM) plans by using the successional stages and plant biodiversity changes.