Herpetofaunal inventory of Van Province, eastern Anatolia, Turkey

In this study, amphibian and reptile diversity in the province of Van (eastern Anatolia, Turkey) was surveyed. For this purpose, four herpetological excursions (20 days in total) were conducted covering all the districts of the province in 2014. In this paper, up-todate herpetofaunal inventory of Van Province, including two urodelian, four anuran, two chelonian, 15 saurian (lizards), and 14 ophidian (snakes) species (six amphibians and 31 reptiles in total) is presented. To the best of our knowledge, Salamandra infraimmaculata, Heremites auratus, Dolichophis jugularis, Eirenis modestus, and Telescopus fallax were recorded for the first time in the province of Van. Additionally, the first published print record of Stellagama stellio in Van Province is presented. The major threat to the herpetofaunal diversity in surveyed habitats was found as human-origin habitat degradation. With the georeference database obtained in this study, it will be possible to determine the actual distribution ranges of the species and to guide decision-makers. The results of the study will provide a useful basis for future monitoring studies and distribution information will contribute to the conservation of the species of interest.


INTRODUCTION
Amphibians and reptiles are important parts of various ecosystems and make up a considerable part of the global vertebrate diversity. Their central role is to maintain the energy flow and nutrient cycling between trophic levels (Valencia-Aguilar et al. 2013). Additionally, as they depend on the habitat microstructure, they are good indicators to monitor the ecosystem health (Budak & Göçmen 2008). Therefore, inventory and monitoring amphibian and reptile diversity are important to assess the speciesʼ population statuses and provide useful information for ecosystem management (Morrison et al. 2008). The identification and protection of any species are constrained by the lack of information regarding the abundance, distribution, and habitat requirements of the threatened species (Smith et al. 1997). The course of future management strategies for the threatened species depends on this type of baseline information (Blamford & Gaston 1999) that comes from the inventory and monitoring studies (Morrison et al. 2008). Shortterm monitoring studies are more feasible and draw a general framework for a species or habitat, while longterm monitoring studies produce more valuable data allowing to assess the change in ecological communities over time. Both approaches are essential for developing evidence-based species conservation programs (Smith et al. 1997;Blamford & Gaston 1999;Morrison et al. 2008;Magurran et al. 2010).
East Anatolian region is a transitional zone between the continents, and its high mountainous structure produces different types of habitats for the flora and fauna elements. These special features make the region one of the hotspots for biodiversity (Şekercioğlu et al. 2011;Ambarlı et al. 2016). Van Province is located in eastern Turkey and on the closed basin of Lake Van, the largest lake of the country. Van is surrounded by high mountains; 53% of the province consists of mountains, 33% of plateaus, and 14% of the plains, approximately.
High mountains are mainly located on the south and north, and there are high plateaus in the eastern part of the province. The average altitude of Van Province is approximately 2,000 m (Baylan et al. 2013). The province has a continental climate with an average temperature ranging 3.3-11.7 °C and the main vegetation is the steppe (Baylan et al. 2013;Kalkan et al. 2019). Locality records of some amphibians and reptiles from Van Province were previously published in herpetofauna notes or species-oriented studies (e.g., Clark & Clark 1973;Franzen & Sigg 1989;Schmidtler & Lanza 1990;Schmidtler et al. 1994;Uğurtaş 2001;Ilgaz et al. 2007;Tayhan et al. 2011;Akman et al. 2016) and books (Başoğlu & Baran 1977, 1980Başoğlu et al. 1994;Budak & Göçmen 2008). The herpetofauna of the province, however, has not been studied in detail. Since inventory studies are important for developing species conservation plans, it is aimed in this study to determine the herpetofauna diversity of the province and provide an updated species list and distribution data.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Four herpetological surveys between 25 May and 20 September (20 days in total) were conducted in the province of Van in 2014 (in May, June, August, and September). The area was divided into 150km 2 (1: 25.000) grids and at least one suitable site in each grid was surveyed for amphibians and reptiles. Field studies were conducted in various habitats (e.g., wetlands, forests, steppes, dune, high mountains, settlements, and agricultural areas). A total of 283 localities, ranging 1,252-2,990 m, were surveyed during these excursions. One-hundred-and-seven localities in which at least one amphibian and/or reptile species was observed are shown on a map ( Figure 1). Different sites within the range of 5km 2 are shown as one point to obtain a comprehensible map. The geographical coordinates of the stations were recorded by using the geographical positioning system (GPS) device (Garmin Montana 650). Coordinates were recorded as latitude and longitude in Identification of the common species was performed by referencing the literature (Başoğlu & Baran 1977, 1980Leviton et al. 1992;Baran & Atatür 1998;Budak & Göçmen 2008). The species were grouped into chorotype categories as proposed by Vigna Taglianti et al. (1999). Species endemic to Anatolia were categorized as "Anatolian endemic", one species (Parvilacerta parva (Boulenger, 1887)) was assigned to "Armeno-E-Anatolian endemic" and main chorotypes were used for other species. Additionally, the conservation status of the amphibians and reptiles was noted according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, version 2020.2 (IUCN 2020), the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) (CITES 2020), and the Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural  Table 1 and Appendix 1.

RESULTS
As a result of the literature and field surveys, a total number of six species of amphibians and 31 species of reptiles belonging to 13 different families were recorded in the province of Van in this study. Species list with their locality numbers, conservation status, and related references is given in Table 1 and in situ photographs of the observed species are demonstrated in Images 1, 2, and 3. Briefly, six species of amphibians (Families: Salamandridae (two), Bufonidae (one), Pelobatidae (one) and Ranidae (two)), two species of chelonians (Families: Testudinidae (one) and Geomydidae (one)), 15 species of lizards (Families: Agamidae (two), Scincidae (three), Lacertidae (10)), and 14 species of snakes (Families: Typhlopidae (one), Natricidae (two), Colubridae (s.l.) (10), Viperidae (one)) were inventoried.
All three anurans that were observed during the field studies (Bufotes sitibundus (Pallas, 1771), Pelophylax ridibundus (Pallas, 1769), and Rana macrocnemis Boulenger, 1885) were common in the province, based on the number of the localities. As a salamander species, Neurergus strauchii (Steindachner, 1887) was recorded from two different localities and Salamandra infraimmaculata (Mertens, 1948) from only one locality. Testudo graeca Linnaeus, 1758 was found in 12 and Mauremys caspica (Gmelin, 1774) was recorded in three localities in different parts of the province of Van. Among lizards, Ophisops elegans Ménétries, 1832 and Paralaudakia caucasia (Eichwald, 1831) were the most common species with 31 and 19 localities, respectively. Darevskia raddei (Boettger, 1892) was observed as the most common rock lizard in the province of Van, with 15 localities. Natrix tessellata (Laurenti, 1768) was the most common snake species in the province of Van, with 25 different localities. Dolichophis jugularis (Linnaeus, 1758) and D. schmidti (Nikolsky, 1909) were also common with 11 and 10 locality records.
According to the IUCN Red List (IUCN 2020), one species (Darevskia bendimahiensis (Schmidtler, Eiselt & Darevsky 1994)) is categorized as Endangered (EN), two species (S. infraimmaculata and Montivipera raddei (Boettger, 1890)) are Near Threatened (NT), and two species (N. strauchii and T. graeca) are classified as Vulnerable (VU). The IUCN categories of other species (LC, DD, or NE) are listed in Table 1. All of the species are under protection according to the BERN convention appendices II and III; however, only one species (T.

graeca) is regulated by CITES.
The species of amphibians and reptiles in the province of Van can be grouped into 10 chorotype categories (Table 1, Figure 2). SW-Asiatic is the main chorotype (51.4%), which is represented by 19 species. Chorotype with the second highest percentage (16.2%) is Turano-Mediterranean, which is represented by five species. Anatolian endemic chorotype includes three species (8.1%). A pie chart of all the chorotypes is presented in Figure 2.

Species BERN IUCN Chorotype
Localities (in this study)

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Schmidtler & Lanza, 1990 is a rare species with a limited number of vouchers. After its original description in 1990 (Schmidtler & Lanza 1990) based on the specimens from the province of Van, the first additional observation was made during the field excursions of the present study and presented before as a preliminary finding . Afterwards, E. thospitis was also recorded from Bitlis, a neighboring province of Van (Akman et al. 2018). Two recent papers by Mohamad & Afrasiab (2015) and Asadi et al. (2020) reported its occurrence in northern Iraq and Iran, respectively. The taxonomy of the Anatolian mountain frogs belonging to the genus Rana is still controversial. Mountain frogs (Rana sp.) both with and without a vertebral stripe in the same locality at some of the stations were observed during the present study. In this paper, we considered R. camerani to be conspecific with R. macrocnemis, following Veith et al. (2003).
The occurrence of Testudo perses Perälä, 2002 in Turkey was reported by Türkozan et al. (2004b) based on the specimens collected in the province of Hakkari. One of the two localities presented in that paper is very close to the Van border (district Başkale), suggesting the occurrence of this species was also in Van Province. Although genetic analyses did not support the validity of T. perses as a separate species (Fritz et al. 2007), morphological assessments revealed this taxon was a distinct species (Türkozan et al. 2010). The same authors, however, considered this taxon a synonym of "buxtoni" clade after their comprehensive morphological and

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genetic studies and they did not use the name T. perses in their map (Türkozan et al. 2018). We followed the most recent study by Türkozan et al. (2018) in this regard and omitted T. perses in the species list considering all the tortoise observations as T. graeca.
One H. auratus specimen collected from locality 101 (Akçabüyük, Çatak) during the field studies has the following morphological characteristics: third supraocular shields are separated from the frontal shield, the dorsal pattern consists of four longitudinal rows of small spots rather than bigger rectangular shaped markings and has a higher number of gular scales. These characters are in agreement with those in the literature given for H. a. transcaucasicus (Moravec et al. 2006;Durmuş et al. 2011). Longitidunal rows of small spots on the dorsum is also a colour-pattern characteristics of Heremites septemtaeniatus (Moravec et al. 2006); however, the reliability of the contact position of third supraocular and frontal as a distinctive character between H. auratus and H. septemtaeniatus and the occurrence of H. septemtaeniatus in Turkey was considered doubtful by Durmuş et al. (2011). Although taxonomic reorganization is still needed for the aforementioned taxa (Güçlü et al. 2014), it is considered that the sample in the present study resembles H. a. transcaucasicus, which is not mentioned from Turkey in the previous literature (Moravec et al. 2006;Durmuş et al. 2011;Güçlü et al. 2014). Since any additional specimens from the site could not be found, the morphological variation could not be assessed.

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Ablepharus bivittatus (Ménétries, 1832) was known only from two localities in Turkey (both in the province of Van) previously (Ilgaz et al. 2007) until Yıldız et al. (2018a reported this species in the province of Ağrı (eastern Anatolia). Recently, Bozkurt & Olgun (2020) combined the taxon with the genus Asymblepharus based on some shared characters, but we follow the former taxonomic arrangement in our species list. In the present study, eight new localities of this species from different districts in Van (Özalp, Saray, Başkale, İpekyolu, Gevaş) are added and it is shown that A. bivitattus can be found in different locations in the province of Van above 2,000m where the habitat is suitable.
Darevskia sapphirina, an Anatolian endemic species of rock lizards was firstly described from a locality close to Van-Ağrı border (Erciş), and no additional sites were reported until the publication by Akman et al. (2016). During the herpetological surveys, which were conducted in the provinces of Van and Ağrı, new sites of this species were discovered and published previously (Akman et al. 2016). We also reported some of the localities within the species' known range in Van province in the present paper.
Populations of Elaphe sauromates (Pallas, 1811) in eastern Anatolia were assigned to a new species, Elaphe urartica Jablonski et al. 2019, by a recent study. Its type locality is Kısıklı, a village nearby Süphan Mountain in Bitlis province (Jablonski et al. 2019). The province of Van also lies within the distribution area of E. urartica, according to the abovementioned study. Although no individuals were observed during the field surveys of this study, it was possible to confirm the occurrence of this species in the province based on the reliable questionnaire results obtained through conversation with the locals.
The present study was carried out within the scope of the National Biodiversity Inventory and Monitoring Project in Turkey. This project was launched in 2013 under the coordination of the Republic of Turkey Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (formerly Ministry of Forestry and Water Affairs), General Directorate of Nature Conservation and National Parks, and aims to obtain the most recent biodiversity information in all the provinces of Turkey as well as to determine the major threats. The project is almost completed now and has resulted in the production of invaluable new information regarding Turkeyʼs flora and fauna. Most of the Van Province is rural and generally used as grassland (Kalkan et al. 2019). During the project, the major threat to herpetofaunal diversity in surveyed habitats in Van Province was found as human-origin habitat degradation generally caused by overgrazing, construction, and pollution. Humancaused habitat degradation is considered as the major threat for amphibians and reptiles worlwide (Gibbons et al. 2000;Gidiş & Başkale 2020).
The knowledge of the actual distribution range and the locality coordinates (as obtained in this study) is important and guides the species conservation action plans (Mebert et al. 2020). Once the georeference databases are created for every species of interest, it will be easier for authorities to make ecosystem master plans and to make their decisions while giving construction permissions. Moreover, more realistic distribution modeling studies can be carried out with this kind of data. In this regard, the results of this study provide a useful basis for future monitoring studies and distributional information will contribute to the conservation of the species of interest.