Species distribution models can help predicting range shifts under climate change. The aim of this study is to investigate the late Quaternary distribution of Oriental beech (Fagus orientalis) and to ...project future distribution ranges under different climate change scenarios using a combined palaeobotanical, phylogeographic, and modelling approach. Five species distribution modelling algorithms under the R-package `biomod2`were applied to occurrence data of Fagus orientalis to predict distributions under present, past (Last Glacial Maximum, 21 ka, Mid-Holocene, 6 ka), and future climatic conditions with different scenarios obtained from MIROC-ESM and CCSM4 global climate models. Distribution models were compared to palaeobotanical and phylogeographic evidence. Pollen data indicate northern Turkey and the western Caucasus as refugia for Oriental beech during the Last Glacial Maximum. Although pollen records are missing, molecular data point to Last Glacial Maximum refugia in northern Iran. For the mid-Holocene, pollen data support the presence of beech in the study region. Species distribution models predicted present and Last Glacial Maximum distribution of Fagus orientalis moderately well yet underestimated mid-Holocene ranges. Future projections under various climate scenarios indicate northern Iran and the Caucasus region as major refugia for Oriental beech. Combining palaeobotanical, phylogeographic and modelling approaches is useful when making projections about distributions of plants. Palaeobotanical and molecular evidence reject some of the model projections. Nevertheless, the projected range reduction in the Caucasus region and northern Iran highlights their importance as long-term refugia, possibly related to higher humidity, stronger environmental and climatic heterogeneity and strong vertical zonation of the forest vegetation.
Recent climate and societal changes have increased wildfire activity and prolonged the fire season in many regions of the world. The precision of fire seasonality analysis from tree-ring records can ...be improved by complementing the subjectively determined intra-ring position of fire scars with more precise studies of wood formation. With this aim, we monitored the wood formation dynamics of Pinus nigra J.F. Arnold (black pine) trees along a climatic gradient in western Anatolia to better understand the wood formation for the interpretation of fire seasonality. Wood microcores were collected from April to November 2021 from trees at four sites across (from north; the Black Sea climate in Bolu to the south; and the Mediterranean climate in Isparta) the areas where previous fire history reconstructions were conducted. These previous studies showed that most fires occurred during the latewood formation period. We found that matured latewood tracheids were observed between September (August) and November, thus suggesting that these fires occurred during late summer and fall. Our results show the importance of temperature and water availability for the timing of earlywood and latewood formations. These findings can be used to better inform planning activities for fire management and as a proxy to reconstruct past fire seasonality.
Pinus sylvestris, the most widely distributed pine species, is commonly used in dendrochronological studies. Based on a lack of studies at its southeastern distribution, we analysed the growth ...responses of P. sylvestris to temperature and precipitation. We selected 13 sites to study the effects of climate on the growth of Scots pine stands throughout a geographic gradient over time. Trees were sampled from pure stands at different elevations and landscape conditions. The linear and non-linear associations between tree-ring widths and climate variables were calculated with locally specific linear correlation analysis and a mixed generalised additive model. Moving window correlation function was also performed to understand the temporal stability of limiting factors on growth from 1930 to 2013. Our findings showed that early spring temperature (March-April) and late spring-early summer precipitation (May-June) are the major drivers of growth at all sites, where high temperature constraints and high precipitation enhances the growth. Moving window correlation analysis highlighted that the response to precipitation was stationary while temperature changed over time. Our non-linear analysis provided a threshold for March-April temperature. The threshold indicates that the relative additional increment sharply increases up to 7 °C and then slightly decreases.
•Growth responses to climate in the southernmost limit with the largest tree-ring network.•March-April temperature and May-June precipitation were dominant factors controlling growth.•The relative additional increment sharply increases up to 7 °C and then decreases.•Responses to the precipitation was found linear and stationary.
•We developed the 553-year-long fire history of black pine forests in western Anatolia.•The period of 1853–1934 CE was found as critical fire regime shift period.•A decrease in fire frequency ...observed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.•Drought and prior wet conditions were main drivers of fires over the past 553 years.
In this study, we aimed to use tree-ring based fire reconstruction to understand the spatiotemporal patterns of past fires in different climate types of western Anatolia. We collected fire scarred wood samples from living trees as wedges and remnant woods from ten sites along a transect that represents a continental to Mediterranean climate gradient. We determined fire years and assigned seasonality of fires based on the intraring position of the fire scars. We calculated fire statistics and analysed fire-climate relationships. Breakpoints in our Anatolian regional fire chronology were estimated to determine the regime shifts. A decrease in fire frequency was recorded at most of the sites after the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. We observed two critical fire regime shift periods. The period between 1853 and 1934 is characterized by highly frequent (a total of 82 fires) and simultaneous fires occurring in multiple sites and this period overlapped with the longest and most severe drought period of the past 550 years. The fire frequency decline after 1934 coincided with the period of the first forest protection law in 1937. Dry, as well as prior wet conditions were main drivers of fires in the black pine forests in western Anatolia. We observed a decrease in fire frequency in the late 19th and early 20th centuries due to fire suppression activities. Continued fire suppression activities may cause fuel accumulation and pose a risk for more intense fires and thus a paradox for forests in the future. Based on future climate projections, we will face prolonged fire seasons as a consequence of increasing drought frequency, which may shift the fire regime from surface to crown fires with the accumulation of combustible material in the understory in black pine forests.
•We obtained a 368 year-long fire history using the tree rings and documentary data.•Fire seasonality has remained unchanged over the past 350+ years.•Major fire years occurred during anomalously dry ...years in the region.•The sharp decline in fire frequency coincides with fire suppression activities.
Forests in the Mediterranean basin frequently experience fires due to both anthropogenic and natural causes. There are concerns that the fire season will prolong in the Mediterranean basin, the fire frequency will increase with ongoing climate change, moreover, the fire regimes will shift from surface fires to local crown fires. Here, we aim to improve our understanding of the fire regime components of black pine forests in Turkey by 1) reconstructing a high-resolution fire chronology based on tree rings, 2) revealing the seasonality of fires, 3) investigating the relationship between fire and climate, and 4) comparing our reconstruction results with documentary data from forest management units. We collected 62 fire-scarred trees from three sites in Kütahya and developed a 368 year-long (1652–2019) composite fire chronology using dendrochronological methods. We found that at two sites major fire years coincided with dry years. Two major fire years (1853 and 1879) were common to all sites and two additional fire years (1822 and 1894) were found at two sites. Our results show a sharp decline in fire frequency after the beginning of the 20th century at all sites that can be attributed to increased fire suppression efforts and forest management activities in the 20th century. Our results suggest that the spread of fires has been actively suppressed since the first forest protection law in Turkey. Yet, tree-ring based and documentary data corroboration shows that seasonality did not change over the past +350 years.
This study aimed to determined the effect of neonatal intensive care nurses' attitudes towards palliative care on death anxiety and burnout. This was an analytic cross-sectional study conducted with ...215 neonatal intensive care nurses working a children's hospital with Turkey's largest NICU bed capacity. The mean Neonatal Palliative Care Attitude Scale total score was 3.04 ± 0.78, and the mean scores of the organization, resources, and clinician subscales were 3.16 ± 0.86, 2.87 ± 0.80, and 3.10 ± 0.97, respectively. The participants' mean Death Anxiety Scale score was 57.65 ± 21.46, and the mean Burnout Inventory score was 39.21 ± 17.61. The organization subscale explained 17% of the variance in death anxiety, and the organization and resources subscales explained 31% of the variance in burnout. Neonatal intensive care nurses' palliative care attitudes are moderate; they face obstacles in providing and improving their attitudes in this field. The high level of obstacles increases nurses' death anxiety and burnout.
Background. Parapharyngeal space is one of potential facial planes for neoplasms and infections and represents less than 1% of all head and neck tumours. Occurrence of the pleomorphic adenoma in the ...parapharyngeal space is a rarity. Case Presentation. Here, three giant pleomorphic adenomas of different sizes occupying the parapharyngeal space in three patients are reported. Extensive preoperative diagnostic workup was done in order to verify the nature and size of the tumour and the proximity to the large vessels. Review of the literature, clinical features, pathology, radiological findings, and treatment of these tumours are discussed. Conclusion. The excision of the tumor through submandibular transcervical approach, without cutting the mandible, turned out to be a safe and radical approach in all three cases.