Application of photogrammetric drone method to determine the habitat suitability of Perovskia abrotanoidse Karel. using MaxEnt model

Perovskia abrotanoides Karel., belonging to the Lamiaceae, is a valuable plant species in terms of water and soil protection, and has a variety of therapeutic effects. In this study, the potential habitat of this plant species was modeled. Independent topographic and biological variables were prepared from the digital DSM layer of the UAV output, climatic variables from the statistics of meteorological stations, and soil variables after grid range and soil sampling from each grid unit. The location of the species was also recorded as a dependent variable using UAV orthophoto images. Prioritization of independent variables was done based on the effect on the occurrence of the studied species in two study areas using the Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) algorithm. The results of model evaluation based on sub-curve surface statistics (AUC) for the warm and rural study areas were 0.974 and 0.914, respectively, and were evaluated at a very good level. Altitude, potassium content, and electrical conductivity were obtained as the most important environmental factors influencing the distribution of P. abrotanoides in the winter quarters. Also, in the countryside, altitude, electrical conductivity, and soil silt percentage were the most effective factors in the presence of the species. The results of this study showed that determining the suitability of medicinal species habitat with the UAV images can be used in the management planning to identify the areas prone to the species distribution and increase the species production at wider levels of study.