Analysis of temporal diversity of precipitation along with biodiversity of Holdridge life zones

Abstract

Many ecological studies show that diversity of vegetation is generally sensitive to hydrometeorological variables such as temperature, precipitation, and evaporation. Furthermore, it is also known that there have been changes in the precipitation regimes due to climate change and/or land use (such as urbanization). This study investigates the temporal diversity of the precipitation along with the Holdridge life zones (HLZ) using the biodiversity indices of true Hill numbers and Renyi entropy. The results show that there are no statistically significant changes in the “biodiversity” with respect to the HLZ. However, it was found that, although the biodiversity has remained more or less stable through 45 years, the HLZ classes have widened toward much warmer and drier vegetation cover. One can propose that the water regime of the rivers of the country has also changed due to the early melting of snow and an increase in evapotranspiration as a result of warming. Furthermore, using the Gini-Simpson diversity index for daily rainfall types recorded in a spatially homogeneous manner over Turkey, one can show that there are no significant changes in rainfall diversity in the coastal regions, but significant changes are observed in the internal and relatively high-altitude areas of the country.