The Use of Indicator Species and Ecological Degradation Model for Condition Assessment in Turkey

Year 2017, Volume: 26 Issue: 2, 190 - 202, 29.12.2017

Sabahaddin Ünal Bilal Şahın Öztekin Urla Berna Efe

https://doi.org/10.21566/tarbitderg.366390

Cited By: 2

Abstract

Monitoring of vegetation change is essential to detect good management practices for the sustainable

use of natural rangeland resources. An understanding of how the existing species in vegetation react to

management methods is important for decision makers. For this reason, the vegetation changes should

be determined by suitable techniques. The multivariate analysis as Detrended Correspondence Analysis

and Principal Components Analysis was highly examined and its results were easily interpreted to draw

conclusions. A relatively homogenous data set first, a matrix of 221 species and 44 sample sites in the

province of Yozgat in the Central Anatolia Region in year 2010, was used by detrended correspondence

analysis (DCA). The effects of environmental variation was minimized by this method (DCA) so that the

major pattern of vegetation composition change was explained by grazing impact. Principal components

analysis was performed to detect the distribution of sites along the first axis, and the distance off the

x-axis. Fifteen species out of the promising 89 plant species were found to be indicators. These indicator

species should be benefited for the vegetation change status and sustainable rangeland management

under semiarid rangeland conditions. The fifteen plant species and bare ground showed clear responses

along the first axis (grazing impact gradient), and became abundant over certain ranges of this axis.

Keywords

Monitoring, grazing impact, ecological model

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