Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
FRESENIUS ENVIRONMENTAL BULLETIN, cilt.23, sa.12, ss.3007-3012, 2014 (SCI-Expanded)
Nature is sensitively fragile to the changes in living bodies like plants, animals and humans that create the balance. The absence, decrease or variation of any pieces in natural life cycle may change this. In this study, the relationship between plant and animal species are examined. It is recognized and observed that the area of thyme, which is one of the most important flora members in Altioluk Plateau-Kocaeli/Turkey, varies depending on the presence of animals. Decrease in stockbreeding highly influences the thyme area in the plateau. The animals instinctively destroy the harmful plants, such as fern, which obstructs the growth of the thyme. Based on this reality, the changes in thyme area were examined using in-situ hyperspectral and satellite multispectral remote sensing techniques. In the work done, initially, the hyperspectral signatures of the species that were present in the plateau area were collected on 15. 09. 2012. Afterwards, these signatures were converted to the Landsat spectral specialties and were matched with 8 different dated Landsat images (TM and +ETM) of the plateau varying from 1987 to 2012 using spectral angle mapper (SAM). Finally, the obtained thyme area results were correlated with the animal values using correlation and regression analysis. In conclusion, it can be stated that the thyme area and the total number of animals, which is the sum of bovine, ovine, beehive and horse, were found to be correlated with R = 0.8871 (R-2 = 0.7869).