890 Journal of Food, Agriculture & Environment, Vol.8 (2), April 2010 www.world-food.net Journal of Food, Agriculture & Environment Vol.8 (2): 890-894. 2010 WFL Publisher Science and Technology Meri-Rastilantie 3 B, FI-00980 Helsinki, Finland e-mail: info@world-food.net Received 20 January 2010, accepted 7 April 2010. Effects of second housing and recreational use on Pancratium maritimum L. population in western Black Sea region of Turkey Zeki Demır, Haldun Müderrısoğlu, Necmi Aksoy, Şükran Özkan Aydin, Serir Uzun and Hüseyin Özkara Düzce University, Forestry Faculty, Konuralp, 81620 Düzce, Turkey. e-mail: zekidemir@duzce.edu.tr, haldunm@duzce.edu.tr, necmiaksoy@duzce.edu.tr Abstract An experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of second housing development and heavy use recreational activities on sea daffodil (SD; Pancratium maritimum L.) distribution on western Black Sea coast line of Turkey. In 2005, to protect the SD populations 1 m height chicken wire- cages were placed on 20 m x 30 m areas in different parts of the shore. To compare the protected area (PA) with unprotected area (UA) 16 sampling areas were chosen along the coast line. Adjacent to each sampling plot a control plot from unprotected area was established. Additional data were collected from sampling plots established in four areas with different intensities of settlement. Data were utilized to relate the SD ground coverage, number of individuals and spikes per individual to the disturbance intensity. Three 1m x 1m quadrats were randomly placed on each plot. On each quadrat the ground coverage of SD and whole vegetation were determined with Braun-Blanquet. Then, the number of SD individuals and spikes of individuals were counted. Data indicated that there was no statistical difference between the PA and UA in vegetational ground coverage. However, the ratio of SD on these coverages was doubled in PA compared to the UA (P = 0.001). Analysis of the data collected from different locations in disturbed areas showed that intensity of disturbance has significant (P = 0.001) correlation with SD ground coverage (r 2 = 0.45). The number of SD individuals (P = 0.001) and spikes per individual (P = 0.001) were significantly different between the PA and UA. SD individuals in UA were about 64% less than that of PA. Spike number per SD individual was also 66% lower in UA compared to PA. SD ground coverage was significantly (P = 0.001) related to number of individuals (r 2 = 0.83). Settlement density made a significant effect on number of SD, number of spikes, SD ground coverage and whole plant ground coverage (P = 0.001). Analysis of data indicated that area usage type also made statistically significant differences on number of SD, number of spikes, SD ground coverage and whole plant ground coverage (P = 0.001). Results of the study indicate that SD populations are under threat because of intensive housing development and recreational usage in the coastal areas of Western Black Sea region of Turkey. Protection efforts revealed positive results in terms of SD survival and reproduction capacity in the coastal sand dunes. Key words: Pancratium maritimum, sea daffodil, sand dunes, disturbance, Turkey. Introduction Sand dunes, with specific flora and fauna, are important components of fragile coast line ecosystems 1, 2 . Sand dunes offer special habitats for plants that cannot survive elsewhere 3-6 . In a natural environment, existence of sand dune vegetation is spatially and temporally influenced by environmental factors such as temperature, moisture deficiency, sand erosion, salinity and salt spray 7, 8 . Among the dune disturbances, influencing the distribution of plants, burial is the most important factor following salt spray 9 . Natural disturbance agents are part of ecosystem components 10 . Therefore, ecosystems mostly recover from a natural disturbance within a limit. However, man-made disturbances such as tourism and housing infrastructures and heavy use of recreational activities may cause the destruction of habitats behind the recovery limits of the ecosystem. Turkey has more than 8300 km coast lines along four seas, Mediterranean, Black Sea, Aegean Sea and Marmara Sea, bordering the country. Besides the natural disturbance regimes, coast lines in Turkey are under anthropogenic pressure as in other countries 11 . Irtem and Karaman 12 speculated that population of coast sides tripled the average of the rest of the settlement areas in Turkey, lately. Besides year-round settlement, second house residential infrastructures in the coast lines have been growing steadily 13 . Cole 14 speculated that recreational activities in some situation may disturb vegetation and soil in an unrecoverable way. Effects of recreational activities on vegetation are usually more pronounced than soil effects. Vegetation on soil surface can easily be destroyed by the activities such as fuel wood gathering, walking on and clearing the site for camping 14, 15 . Vegetation on a disturbed area is usually shorter, has smaller leaves and posses less flowers and seeds 16, 17 . Plants under stress can lose their seed production and then regeneration potentials 18 . Studies in Mediterranean countries reported that populations of sea daffodil are threatened by over-collection and habitat destruction by urbanization and tourism infrastructure and recreational activities 19 . The negative effects of tourism and related encroachments on coast line ecosystem have been long known around the world 20 . Effects of recreational activities on ecosystem