Habitat evaluation and the most important factors affecting distribution of Red Deer (Cervus elaphus maral) in Golestan National Park

The fragmentation of the habitats and the islanding of the populations, followed by unbridled hunting, have caused the red deer to be a vulnerable situation. Therefore, in order to improve the conservation and management of this species, firstly, potential habitats of the species should be identified. The purpose of this research is to model the desirability of red deer habitat in Golestan National Park. used. For this purpose, Maximum entropy approach (MaxEnt) and 35 species presence points as dependent variables and 10 environmental variables were used as an independent environmental variable affecting red deer distribution. The results of this study, based on Jackknifes test, show that the most important factor affecting the distribution of red deer variables are distance from the road, height and vegetation, and the variable has a small effect on the distribution of the species. The most important regions are the presence of this species in the central and western parts of the park. The accuracy and ability of the prediction model for red deer based on the surface area under curve (AUC) is 0.95, which indicates a great prediction of the model. The desirable height for the red deer is in the range of 1200 to 1800 meters, the distance is 4000 meters from the villages and the slope is less than 30 percent. Also, the red deer species in the Golestan National Park is a species dependent on water resources.