Journal of Environmental Biology January 2010, 31, 61-70 (2010) ©Triveni Enterprises, Lucknow (India) For personal use only Free paper downloaded from: ww w. jeb.co.in Commercial distribution of this copy is illegal Structural and distributional evaluation of forest ecosystems in Turkey Ibrahim Atalay 1 and Recep Efe* 2 1Department of Geography, Buca Faculty of Education, Dokuz Eylul University, 35150, Buca, Izmir, Turkey 2Department of Geography, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Balikesir University, 10145, Balikesir, Turkey (Received: February 15, 2009; Revised received: May 20, 2009; Accepted: September 10, 2009) Abstract: Turkey has very rich ecosystems and habitats in which various types of vegetation communities and fauna are found. These properties of Turkey depend on its geographical position, different climatic region, mountainous topographical conditions and climatic changes occurred during the Pleistocene. Several field works have been conducted during the period of 1975-2008. The field observations and analyses of data reveal that Turkey’s forests can be divided into six main forest ecosystems (Black sea region, Marmara transitional region, Mediterranean region, Mediterranean transitional region, Inner and Eastern anatolian region, Southern anatolian region) in terms of floristic composition, forest productivity and climatic properties. Key words: Forest ecosystem, Turkey, Black Sea region, Miditerranean region PDF of full length paper is available online * Corresponding author:
[email protected] Introduction humid and cold humid climates. Mediterranean climate prevails in Turkey possesses a rich variety of vegetation due to its the western and southern part of the Turkey. Continental climate geomorphologic features and vaieties of ecological conditions. prevails in the inner and eastern part of Turkey (Atalay et al ., 2008; Turkey is located at the intersection of phytogeographic regions of Ozturk et al ., 2008; Atalay and Efe, 2008).