| Research Articles |
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| Potential habitat modeling for reintroduction of three native plant species in central Iran |
| Elham G ARDESTANI, Mostafa TARKESH*, Mehdi BASSIRI, Mohammad R VAHABI |
| Department of Natural Resources, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan 8415683111, Iran |
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Abstract Potential habitat modeling of endemic species is an appropriate method to maintain biodiversity, ecosystem function and rehabilitation of rangeland ecosystems. Astragalus caragana, A. cyclophyllon and A. podolobus are endemic in Iran’s rangelands and some neighboring countries. The three native species could endure environmental stresses due to their distinctive ecophysiological characteristics. They play important roles in sustainable pastures production, recreation and improvement. They suffer severe threat from many factors including; grazing, agriculture and invasive exotic species. We analyzed the potential habitat of three native plant species in central Iran basing on the grid map with the resolution of 1-km. We used inventory records from field surveys, herbarium collections and 22 environmental factors to explore the environmental influences on given species distribution by Maximum entropy (Maxent) model. Maxent is a species distribution model that uses species occurrence and environmental data for predicting potential species. The results of our study indicated species occurrence has strong correlation with environmental factors such as mean temperature of wettest season, elevation and precipitation of coldest season. We evaluated the model accuracy by AUC (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve) based on an independent test data set. AUC values indicated the high power of Maxent to create potential habitat map (AUCA. caragana=0.988, AUCA. cyclophyllon=0.927, AUCA. podolobus=0.923). It is important to consider that AUC values tend to be lower for species that have broad distribution scope, such as A. podolobus distribution. Most suitable potential habitat distributions of the three species were predicted in the western and southwestern parts of rangelands in Isfahan province. Visual comparisons of the actual distribution map of the three species with produced Maxent maps represent a good agreement. In general, the model demonstrated that the occurrence of the given species is highly probable when the elevation is between 2,200 m and 3,000 m and mean temperature of wettest season less than 3°C. This model, therefore, can be applied to recognize potential sites for rangeland reclamation projects.
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Received: 20 January 2014
Published: 05 February 2015
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Corresponding Authors:
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