Abstract
The species–habitat relationships can change during the year because of the seasonality of resources. Therefore, the investigation of habitat use by animals in each season plays a fundamental role in their conservation. The main aim of this research was to investigate the raptor community that spends the winter in Armenia, southern Caucasus, and to explore its relationship with environmental features, such as land use and topography. During January 2012, we collected data by carrying out 15 roadside counts along which we calculated three community parameters: the relative abundance, the species richness, and the species diversity. Then, we carried out a multiple linear regression with the Information-Theoretic Approach, to explain the relationship between the parameters and environmental variables. Besides, we computed a Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) between the species and the environment around their observations. As a general pattern, the community was associated with permanent crops, maybe because of their heterogeneity, which in turn allows them to support higher densities of prey during the winter. The most abundant species was the Black Kite (Milvus migrans), followed by the Common Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus) and the Griffon Vulture (Gyps fulvus). To our knowledge, this is one of the first studies investigating the wintering raptor community in the Caucasus, with raptors generally studied in this area during the breeding season and migration.
Highlights
Biodiversity preservation and restoration are the most important goals of conservation biology, and to apply adequate management schemes for the conservation of animals, the ecology and habits of each species should be known (Sinclair et al 2006; Macdonald and Service 2007)
The Common Kestrel was the most widespread species, which was observed on 10 transects out of 15, Table 2 Raptors observed in Armenia during the winter of 2012
We provide first data on the wintering raptor community in Armenia and investigate the relationships between the environment and both the raptor community and each species during the winter in Armenia
Summary
Biodiversity preservation and restoration are the most important goals of conservation biology, and to apply adequate management schemes for the conservation of animals, the ecology and habits of each species should be known (Sinclair et al 2006; Macdonald and Service 2007). Species–habitat relationships can be investigated by habitat suitability models to define the potential response of a species to habitat availability, to produce predictive maps of its potential distribution, and to describe the characteristics of its niche (Guisan and Zimmermann 2000; Boyce et al 2002; Chiatante 2019). This tool is very important for management purposes (Bayliss et al 2005). In some cases there is a positive interaction between species: the migrant can use the resident as a cue to assess habitat quality (Mönkkönen et al 1999; Mönkkönen and Forsman 2002)
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