Identifying suitable habitat and corridors for Indian Grey Wolf (<i>Canis lupus pallipes</i>) in Chotta Nagpur Plateau and Lower Gangetic Planes: A species with differential management needs

Different Biogeographic provinces and environmental factors are known to influence the dispersibility of long-ranging carnivores over the landscape. However, lack of empirical data on long-ranging carnivores may lead to erroneous decisions in formulating management plans. The Indian Grey wolf (Canis lupus pallipes) is known to be distributed in the vast areas of the Indian subcontinent. However, the actual population estimates are available only for Gujarat, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Bihar. Whereas, its distribution, population and habitat ecology is poorly known from the eastern region. Hence, this article aimed to evaluate the habitat suitability along with landscape connectivity for the species over the two major biogeographic provinces of India, i.e., Lower Gangetic Plains (7b) and Chhota Nagpur Plateau (6b). The present model with significantly higher Area under the curve (AUC) value of 0.981, indicates its accuracy in predicting the suitable habitats and identifying biological corridors by using environmental, topological and anthropogenic variables. Precipitation of the driest quarter and the precipitation of seasonality were the two best performing variables in our model, capable of explaining about 26% and 22.4% variation in the data respectively. Out of the total area i.e. 4,16,665 Km2, about 18,237 Km2 (4.37%) was found to be highly suitable area and about 3,16,803 Km2 (76.03%) areas as least suitable. The corridor analysis indicated that the habitat connectivity was highest in the border line area of the two biotic provinces located in the south-eastern zone via districts of Purba Singhbhum and Paschim Singhbhum of Jharkhand state and Bankura and West Midnapore districts of West Bengal state. Among the Protected Areas (PAs), natural corridors exist connecting the Simlipal National Park (NP)-Satkosia Wildlife Santuray (WLS), Dalma ranges of Chotta Nagpur plateau along with Badrama WLS, Khulasuni WLS and Debrigarh WLS. Differential management through landscape level planning may be helpful in securing the future of the species in the landscape.