Anıl Bahar (2013-2024)
Anıl had been a part of our team since he was an undergraduate student and contributed to several projects in the lab on fire ecology, disturbance ecology, and modeling vegetation dynamics. Anıl conducted his research on modeling the effect of various disturbances and climate change on vegetation dynamics in various biomes in Anatolia for his M.Sc. (2018) and Ph.D. (2024) theses.
İrem completed her Ph.D. thesis in our lab in 2022 and then worked as a post-doc researcher. Her Ph.D. focuses on the resistance and resilience of Mediterranean vegetation under climate change and fire regimes. During her post-doc term in our lab, she worked as the biodiversity coordinator in the İzmir Nature Atlas project, and has been co-responsible for an M.Sc. study conducted in our lab. While in our lab, she significantly contributed to several other research projects, particularly on fire ecology and post-fire restoration in Mediterranean forests and maquis vegetation.
Pınar had been a part of our team since she was an undergraduate student and contributed to several lab projects in the germination and fire ecology fields. Pınar conducted her research for her M.Sc. thesis on the effect of post-fire restoration applications on plant communities in Turkish red pine forests. While in our lab, she also served as the project assistant for the İzmir Nature Atlas project.
Esra had been a part of our team since she was an undergraduate student, and contributed to several projects on fire ecology and seed ecology. She conducted her research for her M.Sc. thesis on the effects of climate change on the germination of Mediterranean plants in our lab.
Mina Cansu Karaer (2019-2024)
Mina completed her Ph.D. dissertation in our lab. During her Ph.D., she studied the diet, stress hormone levels, and gastrointestinal parasites of Endangered mountain gazelles (Gazella gazella). Since leaving our lab, she has been working as a postdoc researcher at the Veterinary Faculty, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Elif Deniz Ülker (2011-2023)
Elif had stayed in our lab since she was an undergraduate student. She completed her M.Sc. with a study on the effect of late Quaternary climate changes on geographic distribution in Quercus robur using ecological niche modeling. In her Ph.D. study, she studied the climatic and trait-based drivers of the distribution of oak taxa throughout the western Palearctic realm. During her Ph.D., she also worked on oak genetics in the USA for a while. Since leaving our lab, she has been a project coordinator at the Nature Conservation Centre in Ankara, Türkiye.
Gül Ayyıldız (2022-2023)
Gül stayed as a post-doctoral researcher in our lab for one and a half years. She participated in several project works and has been co-responsible for an M.Sc. study conducted in our lab. She especially made a significant contribution to the lab’s project on the effect of climate change on the germination of plants in İzmir province.
Nartjan Özden (2016-2023)
Nartjan had been a part of our team since he was an undergraduate student. In his M.Sc. thesis, he studied the functional trait structure of pollinator bee communities along a land-use gradient in northwestern Anatolia. He performed field and laboratory work on pollinator bee communities in the Çaycuma region, northwest Anatolia, Türkiye.
Zeynep Ladin Coşgun (2019-2022)
Ladin completed her M.Sc. thesis in our lab. During her M.Sc., she studied the plant community traits along an elevational gradient in a Mediterranean mountain in southwestern Anatolia (Türkiye). She also contributed to various lab projects, including germination ecology and functional traits of steppe vegetation. After leaving our lab, she worked as an intern at the Centre for Ecological Research, Institute of Ecology and Botany, Hungary, and later started her Ph.D. at the University of Lisbon.
Nursema Aktepe (2015-2021)
Nursema completed her Ph.D. dissertation in our lab. During her Ph.D., she studied the variability of flammability in Mediterranean woody plants in southwestern Türkiye. After leaving our lab, she continued to work as a research assistant at Kastamonu University and as a Postdoc at Texas Tech University.
Duygu Deniz Kazancı (2011-2021)
Deniz completed her M.Sc. thesis and Ph.D. dissertation in our lab. She studied fire-related germination in Mediterranean plants in her M.Sc. thesis, which she completed in 2014. In her Ph.D. thesis, she worked on the drivers of variability in fire-related traits in Pinus brutia (Turkish red pine). During her Ph.D., she also worked on many other research projects in the lab. Since leaving our lab, she has worked on past human genetics in Anatolia as a post-doctoral researcher at the Anthropology Department at Hacettepe University.
İrem Tüysüz (2017-2019)
İrem completed her thesis in our lab in 2019. Her thesis was on the effect of plant-derived smoke and smoke-isolated chemical karrikinolide on the germination and early seedling growth of some ornamental plant species in Türkiye. She also contributed to a project in which we explored the germination properties of Lavandula stoechas.
Özlem Özüdoğru (2012-2018)
Özlem completed her MSc thesis in our lab in 2018. She studied the effects of small-scale disturbances on the Central Anatolian Steppe plant communities. She performed field and laboratory work on Central Anatolian steppe plants for her research. After she graduated, she kept working as a biology teacher at a secondary school in Ankara, Türkiye.
İsmail Bekar (2011-2016)
İsmail contributed to many projects in the lab during his undergraduate period, and he completed his MSc thesis in our lab in 2016. He studied the role of anthropogenic and natural drivers shaping recent fire regimes in the Mediterranean ecosystems of Türkiye. After leaving our lab, he conducted his Ph.D. study on fire modeling at ETH Zurich, Switzerland.
Functional Ecology Lab 