The Effect of Environmental Factors on Distribution of suitable habitats for Chinkara (Gazella Bennettii) in Kavir National Park

Habitat modeling as a decision support tool in wildlife management has caused to identify the effective environmental factors and the order of their importance and also the suitable habitats for the species at the level of protected areas; therefor appropriate management actions for these areas will be possible. In this study, Chinkara habitat suitability evaluation and determination of the most important factors affecting the presence of this species were investigated using maximum entropy algorithm in Kavir National Park. Modeling was performed based on 78 points of Chinkara presence and four environmental variables including physiographic, landcover, human and climatic variables in Kavir National Park with excellent predictive efficiency and the acceptable rate of AUC (0.992). The results showed that the areas with high and average level of habitat suitability for Chinkara populations in Kavir National Park are about 456.65 and 679.55 km2, respectively. The variable of distance from water resources (springs and sprinklers) was identified as the most effective variable in Chinkara's population distribution model in Kavir National Park. Based on the sensitivity analysis Vegetation type, distance to the environmental management stations, topographic diversity, annual range of temperature and land cover were identified as other important variables in the development of Chinkara's distribution model.