Investigation of ecological niche of Wild sheep (Ovis oriantalis) in protected areas of Lashgardar-Golparbad, Alvand-Chalkhatoon-Rasvand and Polangab

This study has been carried out in order to investigate the Fundamental niche of Wild sheep (Ovis oriantalis) in the protected areas of Lashgar Dar-Golaparabad, Palangab and Alvand-Chalkhatoon-Rasvand. Similar habitat variables in the entire habitat were identified and digitized. Then, by using the maximum entropy (MaxEnt) model, the realized niche was investigated in the studied areas. In order to achieve the Fundamental niche, the range which contains all selected areas was selected and the modeling of Fundamental niche using MaxEnt model was conducted. The values of the habitat variables of the maps were extracted according to the presence points and then the K-Means cluster analysis was used to cluster the presence points according to similarity. Finally, by using overlap indexes (Schoener's D, Hellinger's I) and breadth (Levin's B1, B2 (uncertainty)), the amount of niche overlap and niche breadth of the species was measured. The results of cluster analysis showed that according to the habitat variables of the presence points, the regions of Lashgdar-Golaparabad and Alvand-Chalkhatoon-Rasvand have the most similarity. However, based on the results of maximum entropy model, the most overlap of the Fundamental and the realized niche was between the no hunting areas of Palangab and Lashgardar-Golparabad, and on the other hand, the specialization of the Wild sheep in the Fundamental and the realized niche in Alvand-Chalkhatoon-Rasvand areas was more than other regions.