The Influence of Environmental Factors on the Distribution of Wintering Populations of Asian Houbara Bustard Chlamydotis Macqueenii in Central Iranian Plateau

Predicting species’ distribution is a prerequsit for assessing threats, determining conservation status, and planning conservation programs. Asian houbara Chlamydotis macqueenii is one of the most valuable game species threatened by extinction. We estimated the distribution of potential suitable habitats of wintering populations of Asian houbara bustard in central Iranian plateau using maximum entropy approach. Results of the model evaluation using the area under the curve ROC showed that the developed models for the species in both training and test models are better than random prediction. Among physiographic, climatic, land cover and human variables entered into the model, slope and mean temperature of the coldest quarter were the most important variables affecting the distribution of the species. We estimated that about 112,286 Km2 (22%) of the study area is a suitable habitat for wintering populations of houbara in central Iranian Plateau. Within the protected and no hunting areas, an area totaling 22372 Km2 (19.9%) was recognised as a potential suitable habitat for wintering houbaras. However, a significant proportion of favorable habitat of this species (89,914 kilometers) is outside of protected areas that requires conservation planning