Monitoring temporal and ecological changes in protected areas with fragmentation analysis: A case study from Karagöl-Sahara National Park | Korunan alanlardaki zamansal ve ekolojik değişimin parçalılık analizi yardımıyla izlenmesi: Karagöl-Sahara Milli Parkı örneği

Protected areas are one of the most effective mechanisms for conserving biodiversity on Earth. In order to maintain sustainable management of protected areas and to ensure the continuity of the habitat types and ecological structure it hosts, it is necessary to systematically monitor and evaluate the daily changes of the past. This study aims to evaluate and monitor ecological changes on habitat types within the Karagol-Sahara National Park using patch analysis and fragmentation metrics at patch, class and landscape level. For this purpose, topo maps (1971 and 1984), stand maps (1984 and 2015) and very high resolution digital near-IR aerial photographs (2015) were used as data sources. The 45-year ecological change in the study site was analyzed in the GIS framework by using the fragmentation indices of core area (MCA), patch density (PD), mean patch size (MPS), mean shape index (MSI), mean nearest neighbor distance (MNN), and interspersion and juxtaposition indices (IJI). The results showed that total forested lands (high+ degraded) decreased by 3% from 1971 to 1984, and continued declining by 12% from 1984 to 2015. The habitat loss in forested lands can be explained by a 40% increase in open space areas over the past 45 years as a result of natural disasters. Similarly, settlement and agriculture areas, which were 30 and 221 ha wide in 1984, respectively, have been transformed into mostly degraded and high forested lands and decreased to 20 and 158 ha in 2015. This decline in settlement and agriculture areas has been associated with the abandonment of agricultural areas, especially by the young population, as a result of the migration from the rural to the urban, which began to accelerate in the 1980s. The results of indices used indicate that the most fragmented category within the habitat classes is degraded forests and that is followed by agricultural areas. The MCA / MSI ratio results showed that the edge fragmentation in agricultural areas had the greatest impact on the average core area. The increase in fragmentation can be considered as a negative factor for forestry sector or as an opportunity for some wildlife species that need edge effects in the region. It is concluded that, since the awareness of habitat fragmentation takes many years, indicator species consisting of trees, plants, mammals, birds and reptiles that are unique to each habitat in the region should be identified and habitat losses should also be monitored with the help of these species for an effective management within the protected areas.