Modeling the Distribution and Habitat Suitability of Persian Leopard Panthera pardus saxicolor in Southwestern Iran

Autor: S. M. Amininasab, Kamran Almasieh, M. Mardani, N. Zamani, S. Poursalem
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Zdroj: Biology Bulletin. 48:319-330
ISSN: 1608-3059
1062-3590
Popis: Awareness of the habitat needs of top predators is vital for viability of wildlife populations. During 2017–2018, 32 points of presence signs of the Persian leopard (Panthera pardus saxicolor) were spotted and they were associated to 6 environmental variables. The maximum entropy (Maxent) model was used to predict the distribution of Persian leopards in the Gisakan, south-western Iran. The validity of habitat suitability model (Training data = 0.844) confirmed the reliability of method. On the basis of Jackknife test, distance from the villages (less presence far from the villages), distance from water resources (the farther from the water resource, the less presence), elevation and slope (most presence in elevations 600–1400 m a. s. l. and slopes 30–70%), distance from the roads (the farther from roads, the more presence) and land cover (more presence in woodlands) variables, respectively, were the most important variables. The results indicate that 25.19% of area (115.13 km2) contains suitable habitat. We suggest that conservation and management plans for leopards be conducted on areas such as studied area that are not formally protected. The results of this study can also help us to identify and protect suitable habitats for conservation and management as well as decrease wildlife–human conflicts.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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