CLIMATE CHANGE AND ORIENTAL SPRUCE (PICEA ORIENTALIS) ECOSYSTEMS IN EASTERN BLACKSEA REGION OF TURKEY

• Main Authors: Aydın Tüfekçioğlu, Sinan Güner, Fahrettin Tilki
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Artvin Çoruh Üniversitesi 2008-04-01
• Series: Artvin Çoruh Üniversitesi Orman Fakültesi Dergisi
• Subjects: Climate change; East ladies; Climate prediction; Insect outbreak
• Online Access: http://ofd.artvin.edu.tr/issue/2258/29751
• ISSN: 2146-698X; 2146-698X

Climate change has been getting more attention from scientific community recently. Eastern Black Sea Region of Turkey will get significant influences from the climate change according to regional climate model (RegCM3). Oriental spruce (Picea orientalis L.) is an important tree species of Turkey and it only grows in the Eastern Black Sea Region of Turkey. With the increase in global warming, spruce forests started to have serious bark beetle problems. More than 200 000 trees died in the region recently due to bark beetle attack. We used existing literature related to oriental spruce and future climate of the region and field observations done in the different times to assess current status of the spruce stands. Future climate of the region has been predicted using RegCM3 regional climate model. Climate change could significantly influence distribution, diversity, structure and stability of the oriental spruce ecosystems. According to RegCM3 regional climate model, the temperatures will increase 2-4 °C in the region in the next century. Future climate scenarios predict 200-300 mm increases in precipitation in the eastern part of the region while the western part won't have any increase in precipitation in the next century. Temperature increases in the western part of the region can cause more stress on spruce trees and would probably increase bark beetle attacks. Also, fire could become an important threat in the western part of the region. It is possible to observe 400-800 m upward shift in the spruce belt in the western part. Treeline of spruce stands would probably move upward both in western and eastern part of the North-eastern Blacksea Region.