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Little owl (Athene noctua) around human settlements and agricultural lands: Conservation and management enlightenments
- Source :
- Acta Ecologica Sinica. 40:347-352
- Publication Year :
- 2020
- Publisher :
- Elsevier BV, 2020.
-
Abstract
- Ecological studies have been focused on large, rare or endangered species but species which are adapted to traditional agroecosystems or rural environments received less attention. For example, Little owl is a typical inhabitant of agricultural lands and its population had greatly reduced due to the mechanized agriculture. In this paper, we built the first country level habitat suitability map for the little owl and identified the most influential environmental predictor of its distribution in Iran. We used species presence data (177 distribution points) and eight uncorrelated environmental variables to model the species suitable habitats using the maximum entropy approach (Maxent). Results showed that suitable habitats for this species are located in the northwest, parts of north east and southwest of Iran. Distance to forests, distance to human settlements and distance to agricultural lands are the most important determinants of the little owl distribution in Iran. Human migrations from rural areas to the cities and availability of many vacant human settlements surrounded by traditional and semi-modern agricultural landscapes produce suitable habitats for little owl in Iran.
- Subjects :
- Athene noctua
education.field_of_study
Ecology
biology
business.industry
Agroforestry
Population
Endangered species
Distribution (economics)
04 agricultural and veterinary sciences
010501 environmental sciences
biology.organism_classification
01 natural sciences
Geography
Habitat
Agriculture
Human settlement
040103 agronomy & agriculture
0401 agriculture, forestry, and fisheries
Little owl
education
business
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 18722032
- Volume :
- 40
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Acta Ecologica Sinica
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........279840baa144ee21e28c9b34792ba5fe