Leila Habibi
Abstract
Effective management and conservation of wildlife populations depends on understanding the wildlife-habitat relationships. It is essential to determine the distribution of species For Management and conservation of populations especially for threatened species. Houbara bustard is a threatened species distributed throughout the central and southern deserts of iran. As a result, the conservation status of this species was downgraded by IUCN from "Near threatened" in 2003 to "Vulnerable" in 2006. Populations of Asiatic houbara bustard have been declining over recent decades. The main factors countributed to the population decline of the species are over-hunting by Arab falconers, habitat degradation and alternation. Iran is one of the most important hosts for wintering populations of houbara throughout its range. There have been few studies on the ecology of houbara in its geographical range and particularly in Iran. The object of this study was to determine habitat associations and suitability of houbara's habitat at a macro scale. The study area was located in eastern part of the Isfahan province comprising Naeen, Ardestan and Kashan township domains. Ecological Niche Factor Analysis and Analytic Hierarchy process were used to study habitat selection by houbara. Modeling houbara bustard habitat suitability was performed using the collected presence data in a 48615.48 Km2 area and Environmental variables including vegetation type, vegetation density, topography, distance to farmlands, distance to orchards, distance to developed areas, distance to roads, mean annual minimum temperature, mean monthly total precipitation, soil texture and aspect. Map of the vegetation density was obtained by TM image (2000) and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) method. Maps of farmlands, orchards, developed areas and roads were obtained using topography maps at scale of 1/250000. Slope and aspect maps were obtained from area Digitial Elevation Model and weather data were attained from Iran Meteorological Organization. We also used published maps of vegetation type and soil texture for this study. The results showed that vegetation type is the most important factor determining the suitability of habitat for houbara. Houbara selects vast plains with minimum temperature of 10°C incorporating of barelands and sites dominated with Artemisia with 0-10% cover and where are not too for from farmlands,.
