In collaboration with Payame Noor University and Iranian Society of Physiology and Pharmacology

Document Type : Article

Authors

1 Assistant Professor, Department of Nature ‎Engineering, Agricultural Sciences and Natural ‎Resources University of Khuzestan, Mollasani, Iran‎

2 Assistant Professor, Department of Environment ‎Sciences and Engineering, Faculty of Natural ‎Resources, University of Jiroft, Jiroft, Iran

3 Expert, Fars Provincial Office of the Department of ‎Environment, Shiraz, Iran‎

Abstract

This study was conducted to determine habitat connectivity and road crossing area for the Persian wild ass (Equus hemionus onager) in the Bahram-e-Goor Protected Area. In this research, habitat suitability modeling was carried out using 57 presence points of the species and six environmental layers implemented in the Biomod2 package in the R software based on four species distribution models. Then, the ensemble map obtained from the distribution models was used for habitat connectivity modeling using electrical-circuit method. Finally, the coincidence rate of road crossing with road collision points was assessed. Ourresults revealed that distance from moderate rangelands, distance from roads and slope had the greatest impact on habitat suitability of the Persian wild ass. Furthermore,results of the connectivity modeling revealed that there were high current movements of Persian wild ass individuals between Qatruiyeh National Park and western parts of the Bahram -e- Goor Protected Area. Eventually, seven road collisions were found to be in high coincidence with the modeled current movement along the west border of the Bahram -e- Goor Protected Area.This research highlights the necessity of provision of road crossing facilities (i.e., warning signs and lights, and speed control for vehicles) for conservation of the Persian wild ass by the Department of Environment in the study area.

Keywords

Akbari, H.; Farhadinia, M.S.; Habibipour, A.; Shaker, A. (2013). Reintroduction of Persian Wild Ass (Equus hemionus onager): A Case Study in Yazd, Central Iran. Journal of Natural Environment (Iranian Journal of Natural Resources); 66(1): 13-22 (in Persian).
Almasieh, K.; Rouhi H.; Kaboodvandpour, S. (2019). Habitat suitability and connectivity for the brown bear (Ursus arctos) along the Iran-Iraq border. European Journal of Wildlife Research; 65(4): 57.
Bahloul, K.; Pereladova, O.B.; Soldatova, N.; Fisenko, G.; Sidorenko, E.; Semp, A.J. (2001). Social organization and dispersion of introduced kulans (Equus hemionus kulan) and Przewalski horses (Equus przewalski) in the Bukhara Reserve, Uzbekistan.Journal of Arid Environments; 47: 309-323.
Bailey, D.; Schmidt-Entling, M.H.; Eberhart, P.; Herrmann, J.D.; Hofer, G. Kormann, U.; Herzog, F. (2010). Effects of habitat amount and isolation on biodiversity in fragmented traditional orchards. Journal of Applied Ecology; 47: 1003-1013.
Brown, J.L. (2014). SDMtoolbox: a python-based GIS toolkit for landscape genetic, biogeographic, and species distribution model analyses. Methods in Ecology and Evolution; 5(7): 694-700.
Crooks, K.R.; Sanjayan, M. (2006). Connectivity conservation. Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press. 730 p.
DoE (Department of the Environment of Iran). (2018). Department of the Environment of Iran. Available online at:  www.doe.ir (Lasts accessed on 1 October 2018).
Eskildsen, A.; Roux, P.C.; Heikkinen, R.K.; Høye, T.T.; Kissling, W.D.; Pöyry, J.; Wisz, M.S.; Luoto, M. (2013). Testing species distribution models across space and time: high latitude butterflies and recent warming. Global Ecology and Biogeography; 22: 1293-1303.
Esmaeili, S.; Hemami, M-R.; Goheen, J.R. (2019). Human dimensions of wildlife conservation in Iran: Assessment of human-wildlife conflict in restoring a wide-ranging endangered species. PLoS ONE; 14(8): e0220702.
Found, R.; Boyce, M.S. (2011). Warning signs mitigate deer–vehicle collisions in an urban area. Wildlife Society Bulletin; 35(3): 291–295.
FRWMO (Forest, Range and Watershed Management Organization of Iran). (2010). Iranian Forests, Range and Watershed Management Organization National Land use/Land cover map.
Grace, M.K.; Smith, D.J.; Noss, R.F. (2017). Reducing the threat of wildlife-vehicle collisions during peak tourism periods using a Roadside Animal Detection System. Accident Analysis and Prevention; 109: 55-61.
Haddad, N.M.; Bowne, D.R.; Cunningham, A.; Danielson, B.J.; Levey, D.J.; Sargent, S.; Spira, T. (2003). Corridor use by diverse taxa. Ecology; 84: 609-615.
Hemami, M-R.; Kaczensky, P.; Lkhagvasuren, B.; Pereladova, O.; Bouskila, A. (2015). Equus hemionus ssp. onager. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2015: e.T7966A3144941. Available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2015-4.RLTS.T7966A3144941.en. (Last accessed on 14 October 2019).
Hemami, M-R.; Momeni, M. (2013). Estimating abundance of the endangered onager Equus hemionus onager in Qatruiyeh National Park, Iran. Oryx; 47(2): 266-272.
Holderegger, R.; Giulio, M.D. (2010). The genetic effects of roads: A review of empirical evidence. Basic and Applied Ecology; 11: 522-531.
Huijser, M.P.; Fairbank, E.R.; Camel-Means, W.; Graham, J.; Watson, V.; Basting, P.; Becker, D. (2016). Effectiveness of short sections of wildlife fencing and crossing structures along highways in reducing wildlife-vehicle collisions and providing safe crossing opportunities for large mammals. Biological conservation; 197: 61-68.
IRIMO (Islamic Republic of Iran Meteorological Organization). (2017). Climate data-base, Iranian cities, from 1993 to 2017. Available online at: https://www.irimo.ir (Last accessed 1 October 2018).
Kaczensky, P.; Ganbataar, O.; Altansukh, N.; Enkhsaikhan, N.; Stauffer, C.; Walzer, C. (2011). The danger of having all your eggs in one basket – winter crash of the re-introduced Przewalski’s horses in the Mongolian Gobi. PloS ONE;6(12): e28057.
Kaczensky, P.; Lkhagvasuren, B.; Pereladova, O.; Hemami, M.; Bouskila, A. (2015). Equus hemionus. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2015: e.T7951A45171204. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2015-4.RLTS.T7951A45171204.en (Last accessed on 22 November 2018).
Karami, M.; Ghadirian, T.; Faizolahi, K. (2016). The atlas of the mammals of Iran. Department of the Environment of Iran: Tehran, Iran.
Kebede, F.; Moehlman, P.D.; Bekele, A.; Evangelista, P.H. (2014). Predicting seasonal habitat suitability for the critically endangered A frican wild ass in the D anakil, E thiopia. African Journal of Ecology; 52(4): 533-542.
Khosravi, R.; Hemami, M-R.; Cushman, S.A. (2019). Multi-scale niche modeling of three sympatric felids of conservation importance in central Iran. Landscape Ecology; 34(10): 2451-24677.
McRae, B.H.; Dickson, B.G.; Keitt, T.H.; Shah, V.B. (2008). Using Circuit theory to model connectivity in ecology, evoloution and conservation. Ecology; 89(10): 2712-2724.
McRae, B.H.; Shah, V.B. (2009). Circuitscape user's guide. The University of California, Santa Barbara, Available at: http://www.circuitscape.org (Last accessed on 5 October 2018).
Mohammadi, A.; Almasieh, K.; Clevenger, A.P.; Fatemizadeh, F.; Rezaei, A.; Jowkar, H.; Kaboli, M.; (2018). Road expansion: A challenge to conservation of mammals, with particular emphasis on the endangered Asiatic cheetah in Iran. Journal for Nature Conservation;43:8-18.
Mohammadi, A.; Kaboli, M. (2016). Evaluating wildlife-vehicle collision hotspots using kernel-based estimation: a focus on the endangered Asiatic cheetah in central Iran. Human–Wildlife Interactions; 10(1): 103-109.
Momeni, M.; Hemami, M-R.; Malekian, M. (2013). Abundance estimation and habitat associations of Persian wild ass in Qatruyieh National Park. Iranian Journal of Applied Ecology; 2(3): 37-47. (in Persian).
Moqanaki, E.M.; Cushman, S.A. (2017). All roads lead to Iran: Predicting landscape connectivity of the last stronghold for the critically endangered Asiatic cheetah. Animal conservation; 20(1): 29-41.
Naimi, B.; Hamm, N.A.S.; Groen, T.A.; Skidmore, A.K.; Toxopeus, A.G. (2014). Where is positional uncertainty a problem for species distribution modelling? Ecography; 37(2): 191-203.
Nowzari, H.; Hemami, M-R.; Karami, M.; Kheirkhah Zarkesh, M.M.; RIazi, B.; Rubenstein, D.I. (2013). Habitat associations of Persian wild ass (Eequus hemionus onager) in Qatrouyeh national park, Iran. Journal of Natural History; 47(43-44): 2795-2814.
R Development Core Team. (2014). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing.
Roever, C.L.; van Aarde, R.J.; Leggett, K. (2013). Functional connectivity within conservation networks: Delineating corridors for African elephants. Biological Conservation; 157: 128–135.
Seiler, A.; Helldin, J.O. (2006). Mortality in wildlife due to transportation. In: Davenportand, J.; Davenport J.L. (eds.), The Ecology of Transportation: Managing Mobility for the Environment, Springer, Dordrecht. pp. 165-189.
Shahnaseri, G.; Hemami, M-R.; Khosravi, R.; Malakoutikhah, S.; Omidi, M.; Cushman, S.A. (2019). Contrasting use of habitat, landscape elements, and corridors by grey wolf and golden jackal in central Iran. Landscape Ecology; 34(6): 1263-1277.
Thuiller, W.; Lafourcade, B.; Engler, R.; Araújo, M.B. (2009). BIOMOD-A platform for ensemble forecasting of species distributions. Ecography; 32: 369-373.
Urban, D.L.; Minor, E.S.; Treml, E.A.; Schick, R.S. (2009). Graph models of habitat mosaics. Ecology Letters; 12: 260-273.
van der Ree, R.; Smith, D. J.; Grilo, C. (2015). Handbook of road ecology. John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, UK, 552 p.
van Strien, M.J.; Grêt-Regamey, A. (2016). How is habitat connectivity affected by settlement and road network configurations? Results from simulating coupled habitat and human networks. Ecological Modelling; 342: 186-198.
Wilkinson, J.W.; Starnes, T. (2016). Ten years of Jersey Toadwatch: Analysis & recommendations. ARC Research Report, 16/01.
Zuur, A.F.; Ieno, E.N.; Elphick, C.S. (2010). A protocol for data exploration to avoid common statistical problems. Methods in Ecology and Evolution; 1: 3-14.