The Role of Elevation on Spicies Diversity of Accipitridae family in Khorasan Provinces (Birds: Falconiformes)

Iran with a considerable diversity placed across three faunal realms, Palearctic, Oriental and Ethiopian. The family of Accipitridae due to their conservation status has got a crucial state within other families of diurnal Birds of prey. In this study using more than one century occurrence data (1886-2013) the diversity pattern of Accipitridae family has been evaluated in different altitude of Khorasan provinces. the data has been managed and analyzed in a GIS, then diversity indexes including Simpson's index, Shannon-wiener function, Simpson’s Measure of Evenness, Smith and Wilson’s Index of Evenness and Camargo’s Index of Evenness and Rarefaction Method have been evaluated and comprised by Ecological Methodology software. Results showed although, the frequency of species in low altitudes (233-1800m) were high, the species diversity were high in median (1000-1400) and then high altitude areas, and evenness were high in high altitude (1800-3305). The preferred altitude class for each species have also been determined and compared.