Kaan Hürkan
Turkey has probably the richest orchid flora in the Mediterranean with 147 taxa (Kreutz, 1998), yet greatly threatened by salep collection (Özhatay et al., 1997; Kasparek & Grimm, 1999; Sezik 2002; Sezik et al., 2007). Therefore, there is an urgent need to collect as much ecological data of the species as possible to make it use in the protection of this thrilling plant group.
The main goal of this project is to generate a unique digital database of “Orchids of Turkey” that contains all the data collected from major herbaria of Turkey and related European countries which have significant collections of Turkish orchids. These data will provide us an important tool for documenting the historical distribution of taxa and designing conservation strategies to cope with conservation concerns such as salep collecting, over grazing, habitat loss, and climate change. This research will be an important milestone for designing conservation strategies for the highly endangered orchids of Turkey.