Species richness effects on grassland recovery from drought depend on community productivity in a multisite experiment.

Biodiversity can buffer ecosystem functioning against extreme climatic events, but few experiments have explicitly tested this. Here, we present the first multisite biodiversity × drought manipulation experiment to examine drought resistance and recovery at five temperate and Mediterranean grassland sites. Aboveground biomass production declined by 30% due to experimental drought (standardised local extremity by rainfall exclusion for 72-98 consecutive days). Species richness did not affect resistance but promoted recovery. Recovery was only positively affected by species richness in low-productive communities, with most diverse communities even showing overcompensation. This positive diversity effect could be linked to asynchrony of species responses. Our results suggest that a more context-dependent view considering the nature of the climatic disturbance as well as the productivity of the studied system will help identify under which circumstances biodiversity promotes drought resistance or recovery. Stability of biomass production can generally be expected to decrease with biodiversity loss and climate change.

Contribution to the traditional uses of medicinal plants of Turgutlu (Manisa--Turkey).

ETHNOBOTANICAL RELEVANCE: The aim of this study is to document and describe important ethnobotanical features of 14 villages of Turgutlu (Manisa - Turkey). MATERIALS AND METHODS: The regular ethnobotanical surveys were carried out during different seasons in the years 2009 and 2010 in 14 villages of Turgutlu. The data was collected from 91 village inhabitants using semi-structured interviews. Use value (UV) was used to calculate the relative importance of species known by the inhabitants. Informant Consensus Factor (FIC) was used to calculate the level of homogeneity of diseases. RESULTS: Twenty-nine plant families and 54 plant species were found in this ethnobotanical survey. Among them, 22 (40.7%) species were wild and 32 (59.3%) species were cultivated plants. Rosaceae (14.8%), Asteraceae (9.3%), Lamiaceae (9.3%), Apiaceae (5.6%) and Brassicaceae (5.6%) were the most common plant families. According to results of the use value (UV) calculations, Agropyron repens (L.) P.Beauv., Lactuca sativa L., Beta vulgaris L. var. crassa (Alef.) Helm, Spinacia oleracea L., Brassica nigra (L.) Koch, Capsella bursa-pastoris L. and Eugenia caryophyllata Thunb. yielded the highest use value. Consensus Informants Factor (FIC) ranges were between 0.87 and 0.95. Blood disorders, wounds, dermatological diseases and chest infections were 0.95, 0.93, 0.92, 0.90 while both gastrointestinal and skeletomuscular ailments were 0.87 informant consensus values, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The usage of medicinal plants for traditional healers is still popular among the inhabitants of the village. This study documents valuable information for traditional remedies and contributes to the usage of medicinal plants in the research area.

Medicinal plants used by traditional healers in Bozüyük (Bilecik-Turkey).

ETHNOBOTANICAL RELEVANCE: Turkey is one of the richest countries in terms of plant diversity, owing to its unique geographical location with different climatic and geomorphological structures. For this reason interest in ethnobotanical studies has been rising. The goal of this study is to document traditional uses of medicinal plants and supply phytomedicines with efficacy and safety for use in primary health care in Bozüyük in Bilecik district, located in the nortwestern part of Anatolia in Turkey. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The ethnomedicinal data was collected during 2009-2010 using semi-structured questionnaires, personal interviews and group discussion with 60 informants (22 men and 38 women). As a statistical method, informant consensus factors (FIC) and fidelity level (FL) values were calculated to analyze the importance of ethnobotanical plant species. RESULTS: 104 Plant species belonging to 47 families were found in this study. Among them 59 species were wild and 45 species were cultivated plants. The most common wild species belongs to Lamiaceae (15.3%), Apiaceae (6.8%), Fabaceae (5.1%), Asteraceae (5.1%), Polygonaceae (5.1%) and the most common cultivated species belongs to Rosaceae (24.4%), Apiaceae (11.1%), Fabaceae (11.1%), Brassicaceae (8.9%) and Poaceae (6.7%) families. The most common preperation method is infusion with the rate of 45%. According to use value (UV) the most important plant is Linum usitatissimum L. (0.86). The highest Consensus Informants Factor (FIC) of the ailments are skeletomuscular and conjunctivitis diseases with the same value of 0.80. The most frequent species is Mentha longifolia (L.) Hudson which is used for diuretic ailments with the amount of 88.33% fidelity level. CONCLUSIONS: This paper reserves valuable ethnobotanical information for research area. The importance of traditional medicines and indigenous knowledge should be conserved and encouraged. In addition to this further laboratory investigations should be conducted on plants to produce pharmaceutical output.

Species response curves of oak species along climatic gradients in Turkey.

The genus Quercus is one of the most important tree species in Turkey. However, little is known on the ecological preferences of Turkish oak species regarding climate. We analyzed species response curves using a HOF-model approach to describe the general pattern of oak distributions along climatic gradients and to identify the driving climatic factors for eight oak species in Turkey. While climate data were extracted from the free available worldclim dataset, occurrence data on oak species were assembled from the literature into a vegetation database (n = 1,104). From the analyzed species response curves, only fa ew (16%) showed unimodal responses, while most were linear (31%) or exhibited a threshold response (31%). The driving factors were seasonality of temperature and seasonality of precipitation, indicating that Turkish oak species can be characterized best by the preference of climatic stability. These findings have important implications for conservation and climate change research, which usually focuses on trends of the mean values of temperature or precipitation but less often on the seasonality. In this study, we further tested whether niche optima derived from raw mean values of occurrences could replace missing model optima due to non-responsiveness of HOF models of type I. However, we did not find this to be a satisfactory solution. Finally, we discuss the need for the construction of a national database based on phytosociological relevés for Turkey.

Medicinal plants popularly used in the villages of Yunt Mountain(Manisa-Turkey).

A survey carried out during the years 2001-2002 revealed that people who lived in the villages of Yunt Mountain use large number of plants for medicinal purposes. Fifty-four medicinal plants belonging to 32 family were recorded. Among them 41 species were wild and 13 species were cultivated plants.