Faculty of Science Engineering, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas, United States of America.
Faculty of Natural Resources, Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, University of Jiroft, Jiroft, Iran.
PLoS One. 2022 Jun 16;17(6):e0269179. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0269179. eCollection 2022.
Central Iran supports a diversity of carnivores, most of which are threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation. Carnivore conservation requires the identification and preservation of core habitats and ensuring connectivity between them. In the present study, we used species distribution modeling to predict habitat suitability and connectivity modeling to predict linkage (resistant kernel and factorial least-cost path analyses) for grey wolf and golden jackal in central Iran. For grey wolf, elevation, topographic ruggedness, and distance to Conservation Areas (CAs) were the strongest predictors; for golden jackal, distance to human settlements, dump sites and topographic ruggedness were the most influential variables in predicting the occurrence of this species. Our results also indicated a high potential for large parts of the landscape to support the occurrence of these two canid species. The largest and the most crucial core habitats and corridor paths for the conservation of both species are located in the southern part of the study landscape. We found a small overlap between golden jackal corridor paths and core habitats with CAs, which has important implications for conservation and future viability of the golden jackal populations. Some sections of core areas are bisected by roads, where most vehicle collisions with grey wolf and golden jackal occurred. To minimize mortality risk, we propose that successful conservation of both species will necessitate integrated landscape-level management, as well as conservation of core areas and corridors and development of mitigation strategies to reduce vehicle collisions.
伊朗中部地区栖息着多种受威胁的食肉动物，它们大多面临着生境丧失和破碎化的威胁。食肉动物的保护需要确定和保护核心栖息地，并确保它们之间的连通性。在本研究中，我们使用物种分布模型预测灰狼和金豺在伊朗中部的栖息地适宜性和连通性模型（抗性核和因子最小成本路径分析）。对于灰狼来说，海拔、地形崎岖度和与保护区（CA）的距离是最强的预测因素；对于金豺来说，与人类住区、垃圾场和地形崎岖度的距离是预测该物种出现的最具影响力的变量。我们的结果还表明，景观的很大一部分有很高的潜力支持这两种犬科动物的存在。对于这两个物种的保护来说，最大和最重要的核心栖息地和走廊路径位于研究景观的南部。我们发现金豺走廊路径和有 CA 的核心栖息地之间的重叠很小，这对金豺种群的保护和未来生存能力有重要意义。一些核心区域的部分被道路分割，灰狼和金豺的大多数车辆碰撞都发生在这些区域。为了降低死亡率风险，我们认为这两种物种的成功保护将需要进行综合的景观管理，以及保护核心区域和走廊，并制定缓解策略来减少车辆碰撞。
