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ŠUMARSKI LIST 3-4/2017 str. 18     <-- 18 -->        PDF

Maquis-like scrub populations covering significant portion on earth spread over locations, where the climate conditions like Mediterranean climate are dominant. These regions, where the precipitation restrains the plant development, are climatic stress regions, and are located between the semi-arid regions of tropics and deserts and the temperate zone. The debates on defining, classifying, and utilization of the vegetation type covering these large areas still continue (Özalp 2000).
The maquis regions are seen in Turkey’s regions, where the Mediterranean climate is dominant. In a study of Uslu (1985), it has been reported that there are maquis regions larger than 1 million ha in Aegean and Mediterranean regions. But, there is no sufficient information about the total area that they cover and the characteristics of maquis populations in different regions. In order for maquis vegetation to take its place in ecosystem management plans, and in order to establish the conditions and methods for sustainable and optimum use of maquis populations, it is required to reveal their economic, ecologic, and biologic values. But, the number of scientific studies on this topic in Turkey is very limited.
Besides understanding the carbon storage and carbon cycle among the global benefits, the data regarding the woody biomass are necessary for many purposes such as determining the productivity of vegetation, management of bioenergy sources, and estimating the flammable materials in forest fires (De-Miguel et al. 2014). Measuring the carbon is also an obligation because of the undertakings of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the obligations originating from Kyoto Protocol (Brown 2002). The UNFCCC obliges all the participant parties for preparing, publishing, and regularly updating the national inventories about gas emissions having greenhouse effect and removals from land use change and forestry by using comparable methods (Houghton et al. 1997, Joosten et al 2004). Although it is possible to determine the aboveground biomass through remote sensing methods (Arıcak et al, 2015), forest inventory data is considered as important resource since they offer more accurate C and biomass data via local measurements and they also better represent the regional heterogeneity (Birdsey, 1992; Brown and Schroeder, 1999). On the other hand; estimating the amount of carbon stored in growing trees and harvested wood is also important, because carbon is becoming a valued product on the global market (McKinley et al. 2011).
As specified in 25th article of Kyoto Protocol, Turkey has become a party on 26th of August, 2009. Throughout the processes of both of mentioned protocol and REDD +(Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries; and the role of forest conservation enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries), it is required to accurately determine the forest carbon stocks (UNFCCC 2012). Hence, there is a necessity regarding the studies on determining the biomass and carbon amounts stored in maquis.
The aim of our study is to determine the aboveground and belowground biomass storage capacities of maquis spreading over Eastern Mediterranean region and to reveal the change in amount of biomass stored depending on certain vegetation and habitat conditions. Thus, it was aimed to understand the biomass of maquis populations and to provide useful data.
MATERIAL AND METHOD
MATERIJAL I METODA
Study area – Područje istraživanja
This study was carried out on the data obtained from 35 plot areas located within the borders of Çamalan Forest Sub-District Directorate in Tarsus Forestry Department of Mersin Regional Forest Directorate in eastern region of Mediterranean basin. Çamalan Forest Sub-District Directorate is located between 34° 59’ 09’’ – 34° 40’ 10’’ E and 37° 01’ 53’’ – 37° 25’ 32’’ N.
Climate data – Podaci o klimi
Study area is located within a typical Mediterranean climate region. Annual mean temperature was 16.2 °C. The lowest mean temperature in vegetation season was 13.8 °C in April, while the highest mean temperature was 33 °C in July, and the mean temperature was 19.1 °C. Annual mean precipitation level was 525 mm, and majority of this amount was received in vegetation season. Mean relative humidity was 60%.
Experimental data – statistical evaluation – Podaci o eksperimentu – Statistička procjena
At the beginning of this study, the natural factors that have potential to affect the biomass storage capacity of maquis vegetation were determined, and the study was designed in this parallel. These factors were divided into 4 groups, and then the subgroups were established. The sampling procedure was executed in the way covering these groups and subgroups, and the data were clustered in this parallel. The groups and sub-groups established are listed below:
1. Exposure: Sunny exposure, shadowy exposure;
2. Altitude: 400–600, 601–800, 801–1.000, 1.001–1.200 m;
3. Mean height of vegetation: up to 1.5 m, 1.51–2 m, 2.1–2.5 m and 2.51-3 m;
4. Mean age: 10-20, 21-30, 31-40 and 41-50 years.
In determining the plot areas, in order to ensure the standard firstly, the regions, where the maquis flora covers 70%