TITLE:
Habitat Suitability & Connectivity of Alborz Wild Sheep in the East of Tehran, Iran
AUTHORS:
Zeinab Yeganeh Keya, Shahrzad Faryadi, Ahmadreza Yavari, Yahya Kamali, Afshin Alizadeh Shabani
KEYWORDS:
Habitat Connectivity, Alborz Wild Sheep, Electrical Circuit Theory, MaxEnt Modeling
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Ecology,
Vol.6 No.6,
May
13,
2016
ABSTRACT: Habitat loss and fragmentation of the wildlife species due to
anthropogenic developments have been becoming serious issues in biological
conservation. Alborz wild sheep, listed as threatened by IUCN, is distributed in
relatively small and isolated patches in an increasingly human dominated
landscape in the north-central Iran and east of Tehran. We used
maximum entropy modeling to identify habitat areas of the wild sheep, across
Jajrud protected area and its neighbouring protected areas including varjin,
lar, koohsefid and the surroundings. Regarding to seasonal variation of the
species home range, winter, summer and multi seasonal (annual) habitats were predicted.
To estimate habitat connectivity, we used models of connectivity based in
electrical circuit theory. Applying core areas of multi season for connectivity
analysis, movement pattern of the species was predicted and important
connective areas for conservation were identified. Species distribution maps
revealed that the summer and winter habitats were approximately occurred in
similar areas. Distance to eco-guards’ post was the most important predictor
for both habitat models of summer and winter. The annual model, which is a
combination of summer and winter, shows that the largest suitable habitat
patches are located in the north, south and west of the study area. Maximum
current flow map demonstrates that the areas among patch pairs are covered in low
current, reflecting low rates of the species dispersal. This map presented
bottlenecks to the species movement across major roads and along extending
human settlements. Cumulative current flow map displayed that current was
highest in Jajrud north of Mamloo extending to the northern Jajrud. Overall,
our study demonstrated a prediction of habitat suitability and connectivity for
Alborz wild sheep in east of Tehran, which can be used to direct conservation
endeavours dealing with maintenance of the wild sheep metapopulation dynamics.