Assessment Of Habitat Suitability For Cervus Elaphus In The Tarim Based On The Ecological Niche Modeling

Habitat assessment and prediction is important when attempting to protect endangered species.Cervus elaphus yarkandensis is wild animals of national priority protection listed in Category?.With the increasing of human interference to the nature system,the wild Tarim red deer suitable habitat environments continuously lose and fragmentation,it was posed a serious threat to the survival of the wild Tarim red deer in indangered state.Therefore,in this paper using MAXENT ecological niche model to analysis the Tarim red deer suitable habitat distribution and main environmental variables influence on the distribution of Tarim red deer,meanwhile it has significances to management and protection of Tarim red deer.1.The results of a Jackknife test indicated that Min Temperature of Coldest Month had the strongest influence on Tarim red deer habitat suitability,followed by Vegetation structure,Temperature Seasonality(BIO4),Precipitation of Warmest Quarter(BIO18),Altitude,Human interference factor,Precipitation of Wettest Quarter(BIO16),Annual Precipitation(BIO12),Mean Temperature of Driest Quarter(BIO9),Mean Temperature of Wettest Quarter(BIO8),Precipitation of Wettest Month(BIO13),Mean Diurnal Range(BIO2),Precipitation of Seasonality(BIO15),Mean Temperature of Warmest Quarter(BIO10),Temperature Annual Range(BIO7),Max Temperature of Warmest Month(BIO5),Mean Temperature of Coldest Quarter(BIO11)and Annual Mean Temperature(BIO1).Slope,Precipitation of Driest Quarter(BIO17),Water system factor,Precipitation of Coldest Quarter(BIO19),Isothermal(BIO3),aspect and Precipitation of Driest Month(BIO14)had little effect on Tarim red deer habitat distribution.2.The simulated habitat was divided into four classes—the most suitable habitat,moderate suitability habitat,low suitability habitat,and unsuitable habitat.The most suitable habitats for Tarim red deer were mainly distributed in shaya county,kucha county,bugur county and qarqan county.Habitats with moderate suitability were in the marginal areas of the most suitable habitats.Low suitability habitat were mainly distributed in around the lopnur county,qakilik county,qaqan county and aksu city,and marginal areas of the moderate suitability habitat.3.The area of the most suitable habitats area is 6710 km2;The area of moderate suitability habitat area is 13652 km2;The area of low suitability habitat area is 39925km2;accounting for 1.3 %,2.63 %,7.7 % of the total area.4.Through Response curves of environmental variables in MAXENT models was analysis the probability of the occurrence of Tarim red deer in the study area,the result shows that,apart from the increase of Min Temperature of Coldest Month(BIO6)and Precipitation of Seasonality(BIO15)has no remarkable influence on the occurrence of Tarim red deer in the study area,the change of other environmental variables has a certain influence on the occurrence of Tarim red deer in the study area,and provide different Response curves.This study provides information on the actual distribution of Tarim red deer in the Tarim Basin and identifies important indicators that could be investigated by future studieson this species and its habitat.