Prediction of habitat suitability for Wild Goat, Capra aegagrus (Erxleben, 1777) in Kavir National Park, Semnan Province, Iran

Abstract

Habitat with its components is the most important need of wildlife species. So that, habitat management is a critical procedure in wildlife conservation. In the present study, desirable habitats of Kavir National Park for Wild goat are determined in two distinguished warm and cold seasons, applying Random Forests, Maximum Entropy, and Classification Tree algorithmsa and for this matter “Salford Predictive Modeler” and MaxEnt software were used. Consequently, an ensemble habitat suitability map was provided based on weight-averaging method. The results illustrated that elevation, water resources, vegetation type, and slope are the most important factors in predicting Wild goat’s suitable habitats with a slightly different impact on each season. In general, among the existing plant species, Wild goat prefers Artemisia sieberi, Stipa arabica, Zyghophylom eurpterum, and Sieditzia rozmarinus. Also, the altitudes higher than 1050 meters above sea level, slopes over 20 to 35 percent, and distances less than 5,000 meters to water resources are desirable. Meanwhile, several suitable patches for Wild goats were found which are greatly in need of conservation. Considering the importance of water resources in this region, in order to improve the quality of the habitat, further study on water resources status is suggested.