Biodiversity of Gavurdag Wildlife Development Area

Abstract

Natural resources are depleting due to detrimental effects of human interventations. The preservation and rehablitation of these areas are critical. It is very important to identify existing floristic and faunistic elements of these sites for management and future studies. The main purpose of these strategies is to protect and develop the target species and other resource values of the protected area. Besides this, it is also aimed to protect the floristic and faunistic value of the conservation area, in other words protecting the biodiversity. It is aimed to investigate and document the floristic and faunistic values in Gavurdag Wildlife Development Area in this study. According to floristic results, 618 plant taxa were found and 97 of them were detected as endemic in the study field (Endemism ratio: 15.7%). Moreover, when the IUCN categories are examined; 7 species are found to be in En category and 10 species are found to be in the Vu category. In addition, 15 mammal and 64 bird species were detected with faunal research in the field.