BIODIVERSITY OF TURKEY

Our country is one of the lucky countries in the world as a country that has vital resources for people's food security and has the responsibility to conserve and use this important wealth wisely for the welfare of future generations. Turkey has gained the feature of a small continent in terms of biodiversity. The reason for this situation is that the country has three biogeographic regions called Euro-Siberia, Mediterranean and Iran-Turanian and their transition zones, as well as being a bridge between two continents and short-term changes in climate and geographical features. In addition, Turkey has forest, mountain, steppe, wetland, coastal and marine ecosystems and different forms and combinations of these ecosystems.

This extraordinary diversity of ecosystems and habitats has brought with it a significant diversity of species. When compared with the biological diversity of countries in the temperate zone, it is noteworthy that the animal (fauna) biological diversity is quite high in our country. Despite the lack of data, the group of invertebrates constitutes the largest number among the identified species. The number of invertebrate species is about 19,000, and of which about 4,000 species/subspecies are endemic. The total number of vertebrate animal species identified so far is close to 1500. More than 100 species of vertebrates are endemic, including 70 species of fish. The homeland of fallow deer and pheasant is Anatolia. Since our country is located on two major bird migration routes in the world, it has an increasing importance as a feeding and breeding area for birds.

To understand the richness of Turkey in terms of plant (flora) species, it will be sufficient to compare it with the European continent: While there are 12,500 gymnosperm and angiosperm plant species in the whole European continent, it is known that there are close to this number (about 11707) species only in Anatolia. Approximately one third of these are endemic species to Turkey. The regions of the country rich in endemic species are Eastern Anatolia and Southern Anatolia regions among the geographical regions, and Iran-Turan and Mediterranean regions among the Phytogeographical regions.

Source: http://www.nuhungemisi.gov.tr

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