2021 Turkey mega forest Fires: Biodiversity measurements of the IUCN Red List wildlife mammals in Sentinel-2 based burned areas

Abstract

Mega wildfires are one of the environmental disasters worldwide. This study evaluates the pre-fire species diversity and the indirect effects, including habitat loss for one of the largest wildfires in Manavgat (Antalya-Turkey) in 2021, with a two-step methodology. Here, (1) burnt areas in the Manavgat district (2021) were detected with remote sensing data from Sentinel-2A by delta Normalized Burn Ratio calculation for a selected area in Google Earth Engine, and (2) mammals' habitat vector data of International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List were integrated into Habitat and Biodiversity modelling of Terrset to analyze the alpha, beta, gamma diversity and Range Restriction Index for the wildfire region. In the total 4210 km2 study area, 696 km2 of the area was damaged by different fire severity; also, there were 56 mammal species' habitats here. These species include bats (i.e. Nyctalus leisleri), felids (i.e. Felis chaus), rodents (i.e. Rattus norvegicus) and large mammals (i.e. Ursus arctos). 88 % of these species are in IUCN's Least Concern category. The remaining classes are Near Threatened (3.7 %) and Vulnerable (7.4 %). This study also indicated that the burnt area's species richness does not totally consist of endemic species. Therefore, pre-fire species richness analyses of this study can be a base for further studies about the species' post-fire activity and occupancy.Furthermore, the 2021 mega wildfires show us the necessity of wildfire monitoring and risk studies in the entire Mediterranean ecosystem to evaluate the risks to the Sustainable Development Goals. Therefore, post-fire spatial data, fire migration monitorization, and recording of the species' activities should be performed temporally. In this way, the ability of wildlife's recovering, and the direct and indirect effects of the fire will be examined for ecosystems in the long term.