To survey factors influencing the spatial and temporal ecological niche brown bear (Ursus arctos syriacus) on the southern edge of its distribution range in Fars province

Selection of habitat used by species that are on the edge of their distribution range is of particular importance in ecology. Fars province is Located in the southern range and distribution of brown bear in the Iran's and world. Khom Mountain area in the Arsanjan County is one of the important brown bear habitat in the Fars province. The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors affecting on habitat resources selection of local brown bear population in North margins of Bakhtegan National Park and compare the width of ecological niche with other populations in other Fars province habitats. Based on the concept of Grinnellian niche, we use 175 presence sign in 10 Arc GIS software was used to investigate the factors affecting the ecological spatial niche. Layers is used as the factors affecting the Species ecological niche that include slope, aspect, elevation and land use. Width of ecological niche space in the Khom mountain area using the Shannon-Wiener measure and benchmark Smith (FT) respectively 0.72 and 0.71 been achieved and for other habitat in Fars Province, respectively 0.79 and 0.8 Calculated. To determine significant differences between Khom Mountain area with other habitat resource selection in Fars province of t-test was used. Which showed that there was no significant difference between the two groups (P=0.487). Although significant differences in environmental factors percent slope habitats was shown but the brown bear use of environmental resources across Fars province is almost identical.