ABSTRACT
This study was aimed to determine the apiculturally important plant taxa in Van Lake Basin. The study was carried out between 1993 and 2003 during field excursions. The study area is located in Eastern Anatolia region, Turkey, which is one of the richestest floristic field in the region. In addition to the apiculturally important plants, some agriculturally and horticulturally important plants are propagated in the study area. Therefore, the area is preferred by beekeeper. The biggest problem of the world in the future will be food deprivation due to rapid growing population. According to the results, 251 natural and 31 cultivated, total 282 taxa were determined to be important for apiculture.
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DOI: 10.3923/ijb.2010.101.106
URL: https://scialert.net/abstract/?doi=ijb.2010.101.106
INTRODUCTION
The biggest problem rapid growing population of the world in the future will be the need of food, depended on nourishment. For this reason, investigation and increasing of vegetation and animal productivity has become necessary. This agriculturally evaluation of the floristic structure and the determination of the suitable agriculture depended on biological richness are needed.
The botanic origin of honey is one of the most important parameters of honey quality (Tucak et al., 1998, 2000, 2004). The quality of honey depends on the melliferous plants that bees use in their nourishment. The honey obtained from different melliferous plants has different characteristics and applications, both in medicine and in food industry.
The history of the honey and bee in the world starts in Spain at 7000 BC. In Anatolia as understood from the inscriptions, it began with Sümerler at 3000 BC (Baytop, 1994). Until now from 1950, Turkey is one of the countries increasing, the honey production at the highest level in the world. However, in these years, Turkeys forests and forages have decreased 20%. Turkey is in the third row in the worlds honey production and beekeeping.
The life of living organism depends on each other as ecologically. During pollination, some plants need outsider pollination. Their own pollens can inseminate some plants. However, some natural plants and most of the culture plants have tendency to be inseminated by outsider pollens. Honeybees (Apis mellifera L.) make most of the pollination in plants. Bees are used widely throughout in the world. Honeybee is an insect that makes the best pollination. In a research made in America, it was found that the pollination by bees was approximately 15-20 times faster than normal pollination (Tutkun, 2000). In agriculture, honeybees should be considered together with culture plants.
Honeybees visit plants to produce honey and take food. Bees collect pollen, nectar or both from plants during their visit to plants. They also collect secreted honey from some plants. While, there is pollen only in flowers, nectar is found in the special parts of some flowers or in organs like trunk, branch and leaf stalk of some plants. In formation and quality of nectar, environment has a vital importance. Bees visit definite organs of some herbaceous and ligneous plants to collect components of honey. For this reason, bee plants can not be determined only by palinological studies in honey (Tew, 1998; Tutkun, 2000).
With its three floral regions, Turkey has a specialty of a continent. In terms of its rich flora, suitable ecology, ideal habitats, colony capacity and genetic variation in the bee populations, Turkey has a big beekeeping potential. The number of species determined as bee plants are about 200 bee plants in Turkey varies according to regions. Moreover, high quality honey is produced in these regions (Kumova and Korkmaz, 2001). The purpose of this study was to contribute to the use of bee plants in the fields of pharmacy, animal sciences, beekeeping, landscape picture, agriculture, also in many other research subjects by the determining plant richness and varieties.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
The study area and general vegetation: The study was conducted in Van Lake basin, which situated in the Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey (Fig. 1). This region has the greatest density in term of species richness and endemic taxa. The Eastern Anatolia region, which has an important role in Turkeys flora, especially Van, Hakkari, Ağrı, Bitlis and surroundings, have high endemism (Ekim, 1990). Research place of Van Lake basin with 1646-4000 altitude is a closed basin. In the region, there is terrestrial climate affected by Mediterranean climate. Relative humidity in summer increases the quality of honey production. Implanted areas are limited and animal breeding is very popular.
In Van Lake basin, xenomorphic step vegetation is predominant. Occasionally shrub formations, also rarely tree forms are seen. There is no forest formation. Existing forest formation has been transformed into shrub forms by biotic factors. In the research area, herbaceous formations with step characteristic are the predominant vegetation type.
Methods: This study based on the periodic excursion in Van Lake basin between 1993 and 2003. Excursion in the area was made between March-November, because these months are the vegetation period in the basin. In this study, abundance and density of the bee and bee plants populations were observed. Plant samples were collected from the area during these observations. The appropriate drying methods were later applied and identifications of the samples were carried out according to thes literature (Davis, 1965-1985; Ekim, 1987; Davis et al., 1988; Baytop, 1994; Sorger, 1998; Ekim et al., 2000; Guner et al., 2000).
The bee plants founds in the area were checked according to the previous floristic studies (Behcet, 1991; Boynukara and Ozturk, 1992; Ogun and Altan, 1992; Behcet and Altan, 1993; Zeyrek and Ozturk, 1993; Altan and Behcet, 1995; Ozturk et al., 1998; Koyuncu et al., 1999; Ozgokce and Behcet, 1999; Ozturk and Behcet, 1999; Unal and Behcet, 1999; Altan and Uğurlu, 2000; Ilarslan, 2000; Demirkus et al., 2001; Firat, 2002; Karabacak, 2003; Ozturk, 2004; Tugay and Ozturk, 2003). Furthermore pollen, nectar-pollen and secretion analysis was done in these plant and grouped according to their categories (Ekim, 1997; Tew, 1998).
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
At the end of this research made in Van Lake basin, 251 natural plants belonging to 44 families and 31 cultures form totally 282 taxa were determined as bee plants. Twenty-eight taxa out of these plants were found to be endemic. The first three families that contain the most taxa were Fabaceae with 42 taxa, Asteraceae with 33 taxa, Lamiaceae with 28 taxa, respectively (Table 1).
Fig. 1: | The study area |
Table 1: | Bee plants of Van Lake basin |
Every index was given in alphabetical order. CV: Cultivated plant, END: Endemic, N: Nectar, P: Pollen, S: Secretion | |
There is high demand honey that produced in Van Lake basin. The contribution of endemic plants to the quality of the honey is thought to be quite much. In the world, 260 bee plants are known. In Turkey, 75% of bee plants are grown. In the study area, 282 taxa were determined to be bee plants. Twenty-eight of 282 taxa were endemic. It is believed that Van Lake basin is important for beekeeping and quality honey production.
In the study area there is not highway and industry. Therefore, the quality of honey increases. Used for the production of honey plants is important. Honey can be produced toxic effects. Because, it shows some of the pyrrolizidine alkaloid-containing plants that are recorded in the scientific literature as being sources of honey for human consumption (Edgar et al., 2002). It has been estimated that 3% of the worlds flowering plants contain pyrrolizidine alkaloids (Smith and Culvenor, 1981).
If pyrrolizidine alkaloid ingestion from honey is shown to be substantially above standards for herbal products, but there is no evidence that honeys containing pyrrolizidine alkaloids cause adverse health outcomes then, this should be considered in future risk analysis and in the determination of tolerable daily intakes for pyrrolizidine alkaloids. It may be necessary, in the case of foods such as honey, to set a level for pyrrolizidine alkaloids that is as low as reasonably achievable.
According to results in the study area, two of the 282 plants contain pyrrolizidine alkaloids and 0.7% of the total plants are pyrrolizidine alkaloids plants. Therefore, produced honey in the area is healthy.
REFERENCES
- Demirkus, N., M. Koyuncu and M. Gul, 2001. The endemic plants of Van province. Proceedings of the 2nd Balkan Botanical Congress, May 14-18, Marmara Universitesi, Istanbul, pp: 163-170.
Direct Link - Edgar, J.A., E. Roeder and R.J. Molyneux, 2002. Honey from plants containing pyrrolizidine alkaloids: A potential threat to health. J. Agric. Food Chem., 50: 2719-2730.
CrossRef - Smith, L.W. and C.C.J. Culvenor, 1981. Plant sources of hepatotoxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids. J. Nat. Prod., 44: 129-152.
CrossRef - Tucak, Z., M. Perispic, D. Beslo and I. Tucak, 2004. Influence of the beehive type on the quality of honey. Collegium Antropologicum, 28: 463-467.
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