Turkish Journal of Field Crops, cilt.16, sa.1, ss.39-47, 2011 (SCI-Expanded)
Long term mismanagement of the rangelands resulted in serious rangeland deterioration throughout Turkey. Monitoring of rangelands provides information on the status and dynamics and measures how to deal with different problems encountered. In many studies ecological interpretations are based on the observation of plant species existing on the rangeland vegetation type. The objective of this study was to determine the status and make ecological interpretations on three step rangelands of Bakirli{dotless}, Gündoǧmuş, and Karaören villages of Çanki{dotless}ri{dotless} province in the highlands of Central Anatolia. The rangeland conditions and health classes of rangelands were found the same as good and unhealthy in Bakirli{dotless}, and Gündoǧmus ̧ sites, but they were fair and unhealthy in Karaören site, respectively. Correspondence Analysis with four axis explained 55.9% of the variance of species data and Canonical Correspondence Analysis explained 38.5% of the variance of species data and 90.8% of species-environment relationship. Sound management techniques could be immediately implemented for the improvement and the manipulation of the study rangeland sites.