Diversity, diversification and distribution of Iranian vertebrates: the legacy of mountains uplifting, past climatic oscillations, sea level fluctuations and geographical barriers

Yousefi, Masoud; Mahmoudi, Ahmad; Vaissi, Somaye; Kafash, Anooshe

doi:10.1007/s10531-022-02499-2

Cited by 11 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 155 publications

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“…Although in this study we did not consider the impact of mountain uplifting on the existing richness pattern of freshwater fishes in Iran, recent studies, have demonstrated a clear link between the diversification of these fishes and the uplift of the Zagros and Alborz mountains (Yousefi et al, 2023). For instance, Gholami et al (2014) associated the diversification of the Esmaeilius genus with tectonic hydrological connectivity of the ecoregions (Esmaeili et al, 2020;Filipe et al, 2009;Gholami et al, 2014) which facilitated dispersal and faunal exchange among the ecoregions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…Iran is a biodiversity‐rich country in the Middle East, and it is home to over 1317 vertebrate species (Yousefi et al., 2023) of which many are endemic to the country (Jouladeh‐Roudbar et al., 2020; Kafash et al., 2020). This study is the first to map endemic freshwater fish richness and determine the drivers of their richness pattern in Iran, a rather neglected and biodiversity‐unknown country in the Middle East.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since the goal of this research is to disentangle the role of historical climatic variables vs. contemporary climatic variables in shaping the current richness pattern of endemic freshwater fish species in Iran, we included variables (Table 2) that are known to be important in shaping biodiversity distribution patterns in Iran (Hosseinzadeh et al, 2014;Kafash et al, 2020Kafash et al, , 2021Yousefi et al, 2022Yousefi et al, , 2023. For the current climate, we took into account annual mean temperature and annual mean precipitation, which are freely accessible from WorldClim (Fick & Hijmans, 2017).…”

Section: Environmental and Historical Predictorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mapping endemic freshwater fish richness to identify high‐priority areas for conservation: An ecoregion approach

Yousefi,

Jouladeh‐Roudbar,

Kafash

2024

Ecology and Evolution

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Freshwater ecosystems are experiencing accelerating global biodiversity loss. Thus, knowing where these unique ecosystems' species richness reaches a peak can facilitate their conservation planning. By hosting more than 290 freshwater fishes, Iran is a major freshwater fish hotspot in the Middle East. Considering the accelerating rate of biodiversity loss, there is an urgent need to identify species‐rich areas and understand the mechanisms driving biodiversity distribution. In this study, we gathered distribution records of all endemic freshwater fishes of Iran (85 species) to develop their richness map and determine the most critical drivers of their richness patterns from an ecoregion approach. We performed a generalized linear model (GLM) with quasi‐Poisson distribution to identify contemporary and historical determinants of endemic freshwater fish richness. We also quantified endemic fish similarity among the 15 freshwater ecoregions of Iran. Results showed that endemic freshwater fish richness is highest in the Zagros Mountains while a moderate level of richness was observed between Zagros and Alborz Mountains. High, moderate, and low richness of endemic freshwater fish match with Upper Tigris & Euphrates, Namak, and Kavir & Lut Deserts ecoregions respectively. Kura – South Caspian Drainages and Caspian Highlands were the most similar ecoregions and Orumiyeh was the most unique ecoregion according to endemic fish presence. Precipitation and precipitation change velocity since the Last Glacial Maximum were the most important predictors of endemic freshwater fish richness. Areas identified to have the highest species richness have high priority for the conservation of freshwater fish in Iran, therefore, should be considered in future protected areas development.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Environmental and Historical Predictorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mapping endemic freshwater fish richness to identify high‐priority areas for conservation: An ecoregion approach

Yousefi,

Jouladeh‐Roudbar,

Kafash

2024

Ecology and Evolution

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“…It covers 164.8 million hectares, located in the Palearctic region at the crossroads of three biogeographic realms; Afrotropic, Palearctic, and Indomalaya. The elevation ranges from –26 to 5,770 m and a large fraction of the country has an elevation above 1200 m (Barahoei et al 2020, Kafash et al 2020, Yousefi et al 2023). Annual mean precipitation varies from below 50 mm to above 2000 mm and annual mean temperature ranges from 7.1 to 27.6 °C across the country (Yousefi et al 2023).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mapping current and future risk of scorpion sting from a species with low medical concern, Mesobuthus phillipsii (Scorpiones: Buthidae) in Iran

Kafash,

Hanafi-Bojd,

Mohammadi Bavani

et al. 2023

Journal of Medical Entomology

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Scorpion stings are one of the most important health challenges and high priority research topic in public health. In this study, we aimed to model habitat suitability of the Mesobuthus phillipsii (Pocock 1889), a species with low medical concern, under current and future climatic conditions in Iran. We also identified vulnerable populations to scorpion stings in the country. Scorpion sting risk modeling was done using an ensemble approach by considering two species distribution modeling methods: MaxEnt and Random Forest methods. Distribution modeling was performed using the sdm R package. The results showed that due to climate change in 2070, the high-risk areas will increase from 20,839 to 79,212 km2. Habitats with a moderate risk of scorpion stings will also increase from 139,347 to 222,833 km2. Consequently, the number of villages in high-risk areas of scorpion stings will increase from 2,870 to 7,017, while this number will increase from 12,759 to 20,104 in the case of medium-risk villages. The results of this study can be used for scorpion stings management in Iran. This study can be used as an example for similar studies on scorpions with high medical emergency.

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“…Iran is a herpetofauna rich country in southwestern Asia (Youse et al, 2022) and is home to 15 terrestrial venomous snakes including one of the most famous snake in the world named Spider tailed viper, Pseudocerastes urarachnoides (Rajabizadeh, 2018). All 15 species are medically important however some are widespread in Iran and are responsible for the most snakebite incidents in the country (Dehghani et al, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identifying high snakebite risk area under climate change: Implications for community education and antivenom distribution

Yousefi

Yousefkhani

Grünig

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Snakebite is a global health problem and yearly snakebites have been estimated up to 5 million leading to about 100,000 deaths each year. While those numbers are showing that snakebite is one of the largest risks from wildlife, little is known about venomous snake distribution, spatial variation in snakebite risk, potential changes in snakebite risk pattern due to climate change, and vulnerable human population. As a consequence, management and prevention of snakebite is hampered by this lack of information. Previous studies suggest that habitat suitability models are effective tools in predicting snakebite risk areas under current and future climate and identifying vulnerable human population. Here we used an ensemble approach of five different habitat suitability modeling algorithms for 10 medically important venomous snakes to quantify snakebite risk pattern, map snakebite hotspots, calculate community composition changes and changes in vulnerability to snakebite in Iran under current and future climate (years 2041–2070 and 2071–2100). We identified areas with high snakebite risk in Iran and showed that snakebite risk will increase in some parts of the country. We also found mountainous areas (Zagros, Alborz, Kopet-Dagh mountains) will experience highest changes in species composition. We underline that in order to improve snakebite management, areas which were identified with high snakebite risk in Iran need to be prioritized for the distribution of antivenom medication and awareness rising programs among vulnerable human population.

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Diversity, diversification and distribution of Iranian vertebrates: the legacy of mountains uplifting, past climatic oscillations, sea level fluctuations and geographical barriers

Cited by 11 publications

References 155 publications

Mapping endemic freshwater fish richness to identify high‐priority areas for conservation: An ecoregion approach

Mapping endemic freshwater fish richness to identify high‐priority areas for conservation: An ecoregion approach

Mapping current and future risk of scorpion sting from a species with low medical concern, Mesobuthus phillipsii (Scorpiones: Buthidae) in Iran

Identifying high snakebite risk area under climate change: Implications for community education and antivenom distribution

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