Habitat suitability and connectivity for the brown bear (Ursus arctos) along the Iran-Iraq border

Almasieh, Kamran; Rouhi, Haydar; Kaboodvandpour, Shahram

doi:10.1007/s10344-019-1295-1

Cited by 41 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…Still, we minimized the spatial autocorrelation among species presences by applying a spatial filter. Briefly, we buffered each sample locations by a 2‐km radius, which was selected based on the mean daily movement of brown bears at ˜4 km (Ćirović et al ., 2015; Almasieh, Rouhi & Kaboodvandpour, 2019). When any buffered locations overlapped, we randomly kept one of them and removed the rest.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Projected climate change threatens Himalayan brown bear habitat more than human land use

Dar

Singh

Wan

et al. 2021

Animal Conservation

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Climate change and land use change jointly are the largest drivers of population declines, range contraction and extinction for many species across the globe. Wide‐ranging and large‐bodied species are especially vulnerable to habitat loss and fragmentation due to their typically low population densities, reflecting their need for extensive and connected habitats. We used the multi‐scale Random Forests machine learning algorithm to identify factors driving the habitat selection and future changes in habitat of Himalayan brown bear, an iconic wide‐ranging and large‐bodied species of high conservation interest, across a range of spatial scales. Habitat selection of brown bears was scale‐dependent, with most variables selected at broad scales. Climatic variables such as maximum temperature of coldest month, minimum temperature of warmest month and the potential evapotranspiration of wettest quarter strongly influenced habitat selection of brown bears. Future projections indicate a strong difference between the high and low emission scenarios. Alarmingly, our model suggests that high emission scenarios, with or without land use change, may result in a decline of brown bear habitat of >90% by the end of the century. In contrast, low emission scenarios are projected to reduce brown bear habitat by <23%, with much of the species range shifting to higher elevations. This study provides an integrative understanding of scale‐dependent variables in brown bear habitat selection, providing critical information for prioritizing areas for habitat management and conservation. Most importantly, our future projections imply that traditional conservation efforts, such as in situ conservation, will not be sufficient to protect the species without climate change mitigation. The incorporation of climate change mitigation and adaptation in conservation strategies will be one of the most pressing priorities in biodiversity conservation in this region.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Projected climate change threatens Himalayan brown bear habitat more than human land use

Dar

Singh

Wan

et al. 2021

Animal Conservation

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“…Our results highlight that crucial core habitats for brown bear conservation in Iran are concentrated in the Zagros (core 1) and Alborz (core 2) Mountains with important corridors between them. These two chains of mountains have a high level of biological diversity and endemism 58 , 89 which makes them two of the most valuable landscapes across the country from a conservation perspective. Local-scale studies revealed low connectivity among patches of brown bear habitat 90 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Brown bears in Iran are scattered throughout the mountainous areas of the country 55 , 56 , and the species is listed as nationally endangered (EN) under criteria C1 57 . The species is categorized as a protected species by the Iranian Department of the Environment and, therefore, bear hunting is illegal in Iran 58 , 59 . Considering the conservation status of bears in the Middle East 47 , shedding light into the habitat quality and connectivity of brown bear populations in Iran is important to large-scale conservation planning for the species.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identifying priority core habitats and corridors for effective conservation of brown bears in Iran

Mohammadi

Almasieh²,

Nayeri

et al. 2021

Sci Rep

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Iran lies at the southernmost range limit of brown bears globally. Therefore, understanding the habitat associations and patterns of population connectivity for brown bears in Iran is relevant for the species’ conservation. We applied species distribution modeling to predict habitat suitability and connectivity modeling to identify population core areas and corridors. Our results showed that forest density, topographical roughness, NDVI and human footprint were the most influential variables in predicting brown bear distribution. The most crucial core areas and corridor networks for brown bear are concentrated in the Alborz and Zagros Mountains. These two core areas were predicted to be fragmented into a total of fifteen isolated patches if dispersal of brown bear across the landscape is limited to 50,000 cost units, and aggregates into two isolated habitat patches if the species is capable of dispersing 400,000 cost units. We found low overlap between corridors, and core habitats with protected areas, suggesting that the existing protected area network may not be adequate for the conservation of brown bear in Iran. Our results suggest that effective conservation of brown bears in Iran requires protection of both core habitats and the corridors between them, especially outside Iran’s network of protected areas.

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“…Each cell on the map is assigned a numeric value representing the relative cost that must be paid to pass through each cell and can be calculated by combining different criteria [102]. To determine the cost of displacement in the landscape, the resistance map was prepared by inverting the map of habitat suitability [69,86,103]. With this operation, the lowest displacement costs will be assigned to those areas with the highest habitat suitability for the species, while the highest costs will be in habitats with low suitability [104].…”

Section: Landscape Connectivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Accessing habitat suitability and connectivity for the westernmost population of Asian black bear (Ursus thibetanus gedrosianus, Blanford, 1877) based on climate changes scenarios in Iran

Morovati¹,

Karami

Amjas³

2020

PLoS ONE

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Climate change, as an emerging phenomenon, has led to changes in the distribution, movement, and even risk of extinction of various wildlife species and this has raised concerns among conservation biologists. Different species have two options in the face of climate change, either to adopt or follow their climatic niche to new places through the connectivity of habitats. The modeling of interpatch landscape communications can serve as an effective decision support tool for wildlife managers. This study was conducted to assess the effects of climate change on the distribution and habitat connectivity of the endangered subspecies of Asian black bear (Ursus thibetanus gedrosianus) in the southern and southeastern Iran. The presence points of the species were collected in Provinces of Kerman, Hormozgan, and Sistan-Baluchestan. Habitat modeling was done by the Generalized Linear Model, and 3 machine learning models including Maximum Entropy, Back Propagation based artificial Neural Network, and Support Vector Machine. In order to achieve the ensemble model, the results of the mentioned models were merged based on the method of “accuracy rate as weight” derived from their validation. To construct pseudo-absence points for the use in the mentioned models, the Ensemble model of presence-only models was used. The modeling was performed using 15 habitat variables related to climatic, vegetation, topographic, and anthropogenic parameters. The three general circulation models of BCC-CSM1, CCSM4, and MRI-CGCM3 were selected under the two scenarios of RCP2.6 and RCP8.5 by 2070. To investigate the effect of climate change on the habitat connections, the protected areas of 3 provinces were considered as focal nodes and the connections between them were established based on electrical circuit theory and Pairwise method. The true skill statistic was employed to convert the continuous suitability layers to binary suitable/unsuitable range maps to assess the effectiveness of the protected areas in the coverage of suitable habitats for the species. Due to the high power of the stochastic forest model in determining the importance of variables, this method was used. The results showed that presence/absence models were successful in the implementation and well distinguished the points of presence and pseudo-absence from each other. Based on the random forests model, the variables of Precipitation of Driest Quarter, Precipitation of Coldest Quarter, and Temperature Annual Range have the greatest impact on the habitat suitability. Comparing the modeling findings to the realities of the species distribution range indicated that the suitable habitats are located in areas with high humidity and rainfall, which are mostly in the northern areas of Bandar Abbas, south of Kerman, and west and south of Sistan-Baluchestan. The area of suitable habitats, in the MRI-CGCM3 (189731 Km2) and CCSM4 (179007 Km2) models under the RCP2.6 scenario, is larger than the current distribution (174001 Km2). However, in terms of the performance of protected areas, the optimal coverage of the species by the boundary of the protected areas, under each of the RCP2.6 and RCP8.5 scenarios, is less than the present time. According to the electric circuit theory, connecting the populations in the protected areas of Sistan-Baluchestan province to those in the northern Hormozgan and the southern Kerman would be based on the crossing through the heights of Sistan-Baluchestan and Hormozgan provinces and the plains between these heights would be the movement pinch points under the current and future scenarios. Populations in the protected areas of Kerman have higher quality patch connections than that of the other two provinces. The areas such as Sang-e_Mes, Kouh_Shir, Zaryab, and Bahr_Aseman in Kerman Province and Kouhbaz and Geno in Hormozgan Province can provide suitable habitats for the species in the distribution models. The findings revealed that the conservation of the heights along with the caves inside them could be a protective priority to counteract the effects of climate change on the species.

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Habitat suitability and connectivity for the brown bear (Ursus arctos) along the Iran-Iraq border

Cited by 41 publications

References 71 publications

Projected climate change threatens Himalayan brown bear habitat more than human land use

Projected climate change threatens Himalayan brown bear habitat more than human land use

Identifying priority core habitats and corridors for effective conservation of brown bears in Iran

Accessing habitat suitability and connectivity for the westernmost population of Asian black bear (Ursus thibetanus gedrosianus, Blanford, 1877) based on climate changes scenarios in Iran

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