Search

Introduction: Climate change along with human development created additional pressure on ecosystems, so in many cases it has caused a decrease in biodiversity. Global climate change continues as a global crisis. Climate change does not affect all habitats and species equally. Rather, large species are more affected by climate change and habitat change and are more vulnerable than other species. Also, studies show that the countries of the Middle East have been severely affected by the effects of climate change. Large herbivores, especially red deer (Cervus elaphus), are not only affected by habitat changes resulting from climate change, but also the increase in temperature has reduced the survival rate of calves and impaired reproduction. The Caspian red deer in Iran has lost a lot of its population under the influence of habitat destruction and illegal hunting, and today the remaining population tolerate additional pressure from climate change. Central Alborz Protected Area is considered as a main breeding habitat of Caspian red deer, which is affected by human development and climate change today.Material and methods: In this study, in order to investigate the impact of climate change on the red deer population, temperature and precipitation data of two meteorological stations, Nowshahr in the lower elevations, and Baladeh in the southern elevations, were used. Also, presence and non-presence points of the species were collected random transects direct observation, as well as pictures of camera traps.Results and discussion: Using 19 climate parameters to evaluate habitat suitability in the future, it revealed that continuation of the climate change process in four optimistic to pessimistic scenarios using five MaxEnt, RF, ANN, GLM, MARS algorithms, the suitability of low altitude areas in the sectors of north and east will be reduced, and will be increased towards to highlands in southwest. The results showed that the parameters of average annual temperature, average daily temperature, average temperature of the dry season, average temperature of the hottest season, annual rainfall, rainfall in the wettest season, and rainfall in the hottest season have an effective role in determination of the habitat suitability of the species. The results of the climate data showed that the altitude plays an effective role in reducing the effects of climate change, so that the climate change in the downstream areas has a significant intensity compared to the high areas. According to the change of habitat suitability resulting from the continuation of the climate change, Kojoor forest zone shows the relative stability of desirability for the studied species in the present and future, but the Kheyrud forest road with a total length of more than 50 km is located in the depth of this area, where the traffic of vehicles of herders, ecotourists and especially illegal hunters have facilitated access to this habitat, which is the most main threat to survival of red deer in this habitat.Conclusion: With the continuation of climate change and its effects on the habitat in the future, it is expected that female deers will be observed in unsafe parts of the habitat. Therefore, for conservation of the Caspian red deer population in the central Alborz Protected Area, robust management measures are needed based on created habitat changes in the future.

Introduction: Lar National Park is the best habitat of Salmo caspius in Iran. In other habitats located in Iran, the species has been threatened by different factors including habitat destruction, pollution, sand removal from the river bed, dam construction, introduction of exotic species, over-fishing, and other human mediated changes. Dalicahy River, as one of the major habitats of S. caspius, is ecologically different from other rivers in the Lar National Park. In this study, we assessed genetic differences (applying next-generation sequencing) of S. caspius in Dalichay River and Lar Lake; considering an impassable barrier in the mouth of Dalichay River. Material and methods: in this study fin clips from fish electrofished in the river and fin clips collected via angling in the lake were used. DNA extraction was performed using salt extraction method with an additional treatment with RNAse to degrade RNA molecules. To compare fish from Dalichay River and the Lar Lake, next generation sequencing was used. Analyses including principal components analysis (PCA) and Admixture, plus calculation of genetic differentiation (Fst) were used to compare the studied populations. Results and discussion: According to the results of principal components analysis (PCA) fish from the Dalichay River and the Lake were separated clearly along the first PC (25.11% of variation). But they were overlapped along other PCs. The results of Admixture analysis showed that Dalichay and Lake fish were always represented with different admixture clusters with little contribution from one another. Additionally, the genetic differentiation between the Dalichay and the Lake was significant. The reason for this differentiation can be the existence of a physical barrier in the moth of Dalichay that blocks the path for migration from Dalichay to the Lake and vice versa. On the other hand, it is possible that the fish in Dalichay are resident and do not show any preference for migration to the Lake. The residency behavior forms in result of low density of fish and satisfaction of biological and habitat related needs of the fish and hence no need for migration. Conclusion: overall, the results of this study showed that the fish in Dalichay River and in the Lake differ in their genetic composition and were significantly differentiated from one another. In any case, high differentiation of the fish in the Dalichay River and their isolation in addition to inability of fish from the Lake and other rivers in the Lar National Park to Dalichay, necessitates revision and taking better management approaches.

Introduction: Carnivores have always been exposed to threatening processes because of their placement at the top of the food pyramid. Nowadays, approximately 65% of carnivores are listed as Critically Endangered or Vulnerable in the IUCN Red List of threatened species. On a global scale, in order Carnivora, the Hyaenidae family is the smallest with only four species. Hyaena hyaena is the only member of the Hyaenidae faimly in Iran, which is listed as “Near Threatened” (NT) in the IUCN Red List. The current study aimed to model the species distribution of the striped hyaena (Hyaena hyaena), which has a wide distribution in Iran. Materials and methods: Using nineteen layers of climatic variables, the correlations between those variables were analyzed and then highly correlated variables were excluded from the modeling process. Finally, eight species distribution models from the sdm package (GLM, GAM, BRT, SVM, RF, MARS, CART, and FDA) in R software were used. Given that the output of species distribution models are often uncertain, which is an undeniable fact, one possible solution to estimate the difference between projections and reduce the uncertainty, is the use of ensemble prediction system instead of using a single modeling method. Therefore, after determining the potential habitats of the Hyaena hyaena with those eight mentioned models and by using the ensemble prediction system, the best regions for the distribution of this species in Iran were estimated. Results and discussion: The results of this study showed that annual mean temperature, seasonal precipitation and precipitation of the warmest season have the most influence on the distribution of Hyaena hyaena. In general, FDA, GAM, BRT, CART and GLM models are fairly reliable, the MARS model is very reliable, and SVM and RF models are completely reliable. The results showed that the GLM, GAM, BRT, MARS, CART, RF models demonstrate that the suitable areas for Hyaena hyaena are generally the central regions of Iran, while the SVM and FDA models predicted the southern margin of the Caspian sea to make the best regions for the distribution of this species. Conclusion: The difference in the predictions that each model makes confirms the uncertainty between models. Therefore, the necessity of using Ensemble method is revealed. The results of the Ensemble model showed that the most suitable regions for the Hyaena hyaena species distribution are semi-arid and central steppe regions of Iran.