Türkiye'deki Kuş Türü Zenginliğinin Coğrafi Varyasyon Deseni

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate what types of community structures affect breeding bird species richness and diversity in their habitats. The richness and diversity indices, which provide an understanding of the community structure, were used for hypothesis testing. Data on breeding bird species collected within the Turkish Breeding Bird Atlas was analyzed in this study. This data includes the lists of one-hour-long bird observations which were conducted in 764 different sampling points of a size of 1x1 km. These observation lists are important for the number of species and the number of individuals. Observation records containing distribution and abundance data collected during the period from March to July were used to calculate richness and diversity indices. These indices are the total number of species (S), the Margalef index (D), the Shannon index (H') and the Simpson index in the sampling area. iv Index results were used as dependent variables in statistical analysis. With these variables, bird species richness (S) and (D), diversity (H') and species dominance were investigated to analyze what kind of variation is found in Turkey. In order to investigate this question 764 bird observations were divided into 12 groups according to the ecoregions in which they are located. These groups were used to carry out pairwise comparisons with statistical analysis. The groups of richness and diversity were used in statistical analysis. This data was used to show the variation pattern of bird richness and diversity in Turkey. For this purpose, the ecoregions were used as a group according to their different biodiversity features. Based on the results of statistical analysis it was shown that bird species in Turkey’s Inner Anatolian forests are significantly different in terms of richness and diversity. It is plausible to say that habitats which are affected by intensive human impact have significantly lower species richness and diversity. Generalized linear models (GLM) with latitude, longitude, land use characteristics, altitude and climate parameters were established and bird habitat relationships determining the structure of bird communities were investigated. This thesis is a study of the distribution and abundance data of breeding bird species to investigate the impact of habitat features on the biodiversity of the ecoregions in Turkey. This study is therefore important because it offers a discussion on the differences of the ecoregions with regard to bird communities.