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Capital of several empires through centuries, Istanbul has been a populated city in history. However, the population has increased by a factor of 13.3 over the last seven decades, which in turn has made this megacity a hotspot of domestic and industrial pollution. Marine biodiversity around Istanbul suffered from the increased pressures due to overfishing, extensive recreational usage, extreme habitat destruction and introduction of alien species via heavy maritime traffic. 70 years before, Muzaffer Demir published a colossal marine biodiversity study in 1952. We used the organization of this publication, and particularly employed it as a methodology, combined with Underwater Visual Census for a later study between 1997–1999 which involved more than 100 scuba dives. Our study investigated the abundance status of benthic species living mainly on rocky reefs as deep as 50 meters. The investigated species represented four phyla: Cnidaria, Echinodermata, Mollusca and Porifera. Approximately 40% of cnidarians, 40% of echinoderms, 65% of molluscs, and 80% of sponges recorded in the 1950s, were not recorded during our study, particularly due to methodological differences and population collapses or local extinctions. This paper aims to analyze and compare the temporal aspects of marine biodiversity in the Prince’s Islands and Bosphorus region using several time domains; historical records, Demir’s compendium in 1952, our field study in the closing of the previous millennium, combined efforts of the Turkish Journal of Zoology in 2014 of Turkey biodiversity checklists, and the most recent literature after that.

The invasive alien lionfish, Pterois miles is a ray-finned fish from the Scorpaenidae family, which has twelve accepted species from the genus Pterois. It was recorded in May 2014 at the Pina Reef, 2.28 miles off Kas harbour (southwestern coasts of Turkey) for the first time, and showed a very rapid establishment in the rocky habitats throughout Kas-Kekova Special Environmental Protected Area (SEPA). During the summer of 2014 only three individuals were recorded at two different locations, however as of 2017, regular observations could be made at each diving spot, which is indicative of an increasing trend. The temporal perspective of this study increases the understanding on the progression of expected range expansion of P. miles within a relatively small region, covering the period of 2014–2019. Fish count observations from underwater visual census surveys in addition to records from citizen science approach were evaluated based on spatio-temporal analysis. Resulting visualizations were prepared to present annual dynamics of spatio-temporal distribution within and outside the SEPA. Rapid expansion, up to 22 individuals per 500 m linear transects of an estimated area of 15.000 m2 each, and the increases in the numbers of fish are quantified in this study, which can be used as a baseline to develop conservation strategy for native species. Efforts to cull and create consumption demand to decrease the population trend of the lionfish have already started in the region.

Since the emergence of laser and henceforth laser remote sensing in the 1960's, lidar (light detecting and ranging) technology has became a significant tool for the detection of various phenomena like wind direction and intensity, atmospheric temperature, urban and rural topography, forest fires, ocean planktonic development, and detection of various constituants such as tropospheric aerosols, stratospheric ozone, trace chemicals and etc. In 2009, a homemade multiwavelength Raman aerosol lidar (named MRC K09) was designed, developed and installed in the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) Marmara Research Center (MRC), and since 21 February 2011, it has been accepted to EARLINET (European Aerosol Research Lidar Network). Since 2009, aerosol spatio-temporal distribution and microphysical properties have been investigated in the extremely industrialized vicinity [1,2]. MRC K09 lidar uses a Quantel Brilliant B Nd:YAG laser (1064 nm) with the second and third optical harmonics at 532 and 355 nm, and a homemade Newtonian 40 cm aperture 120 cm focal length telescope. It has 7 channel spectrum analyzer detecting: parallel and perpendicular polarizations at 355 nm, elastic signals at 532 and 1064 nm, Raman signal of molecular nitrogen at 387 nm and Raman signal of water vapor at 408 nm (excited with 355 laser line), and Raman signal for molecular nitrogen at 608 nm (excited with 532 nm laser line). In Spring 2010, preliminary applications for the determination of forest tree species and of forest health in the Black Sea Area using an aeroborne lidar in collaboration with Bartin University, Bartin, Turkey have been made. In early 2011, a fluorescence module utilizing a Princeton Instruments PI-MAX3 1024x256 resolution CCD camera with a Princeton Instruments Acton SP 2500 0.500 m Imaging Triple Grating Monochromator/Spectograph was connected to the MRC K09 lidar system, and the first remote measurements of chlorophyll from different types of trees were made. Figure 1 demonstrates the results of these measurements, which must be considered as preliminary and in the future, the measurements can be carried out by the lidar mounted on an aircraft to cover large spatial areas. One of the most important reasons for biodiversity loss, habitat loss and fragmentation can be monitored in large areas by aeroborne lidars and therefore the extent of the situation can be accessed precisely, faster and more efficiently. This paper aims to give a brief overview to show the possibility of detecting the detailed situations of the habitats on terrain surfaces using lidar technology by summarizing the successful examples which have been realized thus far in different types of ecosystems like savannas, forest and grasslands.

Aerosols affect the radiation budget of the Earth by scattering and absorbing the incoming solar radiation, and by acting as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) to form clouds and/or change their properties. Because of their high spatio-temporal variability and remote nature, investigations of aerosols physical properties have been rather limited until the last few decades. Lately, multiwavelength Raman lidars became an important tool for the measurements of aerosol physical parameters. Such lidars allow to get three aerosol backscattering and two extinction coefficients (so called 3β+2α) and from these optical data the particle microphysical parameters such as number, surface area and volume concentrations, effective radius, particle size distribution, particle and volume polarizations and complex refractive index can be retrieved through inversion with regularization, principle component analysis and linear estimation techniques. During 2009-2011, using a homemade multiwavelength Raman lidar with a Quantel BrilliantB Nd:YAG laser generating also the 2nd and the 3rd optical harmonics, the spatial and temporal distribution of aerosols and their microphysical properties have been measured and evaluated in various seasons, meteorological conditions and with different horizontal measurement angles. Reliability of our results have been confirmed with the synergistic measurements done with lidars located in Greece, the EUFAR aircraft (European Facility for Airborne Research, FAAM-Bae146 aircraft), ACEMED campaign (Evaluation of CALIPSO’s (Cloud-aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation) aerosol classificatiomn scheme over Eastern Mediterranean) and GOSAT (Global Greenhouse Gas Observation by Satellite project). In early 2012, the addition of the scanning module mounted on the top of the telescope, allowed to obtain information about the aerosol distribution within fixed and regular time intervals in a given time frame and from various measurement angles, and thus it made possible to cover a large spatial area and to evaluate the changes in the aerosol microphysical properties in space and time. It uses Newport ESP301 Motion Controller allowing to make measurements in 340° azimuthal and ± 15° vertical scanning angles by a 300 x 600 mm plane mirror. In this paper, the description of the new multiwavelength aerosol lidar scanning system installed in the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) Marmara Research Center (MRC), KA09 Laser and Lidar Laboratory is explained, and the first results obtained from the data acquired during Spring and Summer 2012 are presented by integrating the results with a geographical map of Gebze Area.