Geographic distribution of two taxa using ecological niche modeling.

Ecological niche modeling predicts the potential distribution areas of species and contributes to measuring the niche differentiation among taxa. and are two mountain viper taxa distributed in Anatolia. In the present study, the habitat suitability of and was assessed, and ecological niche ranges between these taxa were compared. According to species distribution models, while the distribution area of covers a relatively large region in central Anatolia, has a relatively narrow distribution over the eastern Taurus mountains. The species distributional results showed that the annual temperature range and mean temperature of the coldest quarter were the highest contributing variables, with 62.5% for and 67.9% for prefers 13 different habitat types, while prefers 6 different habitat types in their distribution areas. Niche differentiation analysis revealed that there was no overlap between the two taxa in terms of their ecological niches.