Journal of Environmental Biology

Tree species diversity and its relationship to stand parameters and geomorphology features in the eastern Black sea region forests of turkey

Ramazan Ozcelik*¹, Altay Ugur Gul², Jan Merganic³ and Katarina Merganicova³

¹Faculty of Forestry, Suleyman Demirel University - 32260, Cunur, Isparta, Turkey

²School of Applied Sciences, Celal Bayar University - 45040-Manisa, Turkey

³Forest Research Inventory and Monitoring (FORIM) kpt. Nalepku 277/11, 073 01, Sobrance, Slovakia

(Received: March 31, 2007 ; Revised received: August 08, 2007 ; Accepted: September 05, 2007)

Abstract: We studied the effects of stand parameters (crown closure, basal area, stand volume, age, mean stand diameter, number of trees, and heterogeneity index) and geomorphology features (elevation, aspect and slope) on tree species diversity in an example of untreated natural mixed forest stands in the eastern black sea region of  Turkey. Tree species diversity and basal area heterogeneity in forest ecosystems are quantified using the Shannon-Weaver and Simpson indices. The relationship between tree species diversity, basal area heterogeneity, stand parameters and geomorphology features are examined using regression analysis. Our work revealed that the relationship between tree species diversity and stand parameters is loose with a correlation coefficient between 0.02 and 0.70. The correlation of basal area heterogeneity with stand parameters fluctuated between 0.004 and 0.77 (R²). According to our results, stands with higher tree species diversity are characterised by higher mean stand diameter, number of diameter classes, basal area and lower homogeneity index value. Considering the effect of geomorphology features on tree species or basal area heterogeneity, we found that all investigated relationships are loose with R² < 0.24. A significant correlation was detected only between tree species diversity and aspect. Future work is required to verify the detected trends in behaviour of tree species diversity if it is to estimate from the usual forest stand parameters and topography characteristics.

Key words:    Tree species diversity, Mixed stands, Stand structure, Geomorphology

PDF of full length paper is available with author (ramazan@orman.sdu.edu.tr)

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