BROWN BEAR (URSUS ARCTOS) HABITAT SUITABILITY MODELLING AND MAPPING

OpenAlex İngilizce

Today, the biggest threats for mammal predators are habitat losses, humans, and other factors.Although brown bears are not under threat in Turkey, there is still risk for fragmented and isolated populations.It is necessary to carry out habitat suitability analysis in order to determine these risks.The study area is the Western Mediterranean Region and the modelling was carried out using Maximum Entropy method with presence data collected from 56 sample areas in Antalya -Akseki.MAXENT method was used since it reveals reliable and valid models in larger areas with little local data.Crossvalidation was done separating 90% of data for training and 10% for testing to validate test data in the modelling process.AUC values of the training and test data were found to be 0.956 and 0.909, respectively.The model was also evaluated according to Receiver Operating Characteristic value and Jackknife test.Environmental variables contributing to the model were Ruggedness Index, Elevation, Slope, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, Solar Illumination Index, and Roughness Index.Habitat suitability map of the brown bear was created following the modelling process and the usability of the model and the map were evaluated for brown bear management plans.To conclude, Brown bear is a significant mammal species the habitat of which must be preserved.