Pleske's Ground Jay habitat suitability modeling: implications for conservation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14634649Keywords:
Distribution modeling, habitat structure, habitat use, landscape metrics, habitat modeling, Ground JayAbstract
Abbas-Abad Wildlife Refuge is one of the richest protected areas of the Iranian central plateau, hosting different valuable, threatened, and native species, such as the Iranian Pleske's Ground Jay. Habitat features of this native species at the landscape level were investigated using the Maximum Entropy method. Our analysis showed that more than 50 percent of the predicted suitable habitats are located outside the legally protected areas, which require special consideration. We found that the predicted potential habitats for the species in the IUCN database (for Isfahan province) are three times more than our findings in this study. Our analysis indicated that air relative humidity, topography, proximity to seasonal springs, and sand dunes are the main landscape-level habitat variables that affect species distribution. Including unprotected habitats in the reserved areas network can help sustain viable populations of the Ground Jay.
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