Habitat modeling for Afghan Pika (Ochotona rufescens) in Iran from a climatic perspective

One of the most struggling issues for conservationists and wildlife managers is the climate change. This can be the necessity to develop climate condition indicators. Due to the limited movements and special habitat conditions، Pikas can be considered as reliable climate indicators. In this study، the most important climatic factors defining the distribution of this species were investigated to develop its distributional model for climatic change studies purposes and predicting wildlife movements. The distribution records of Afghan Pika in Iran in combination with the presence/absence location data in 120 points، and climatic and elevation of those locations were analyzed using a binary logistic regression. The results depicted that the most important climatic factors that describe the presence of the Afghan Pika in Iran are the monthly mean of the daily average temperature، average relative humidity، number of days with maximum 0ºc، and number of days with minimum -4ºC، and the altitude. The results suggest that this model can be used as the suitable habitats for this species.