Yaban Keçisi (Capra aegagrus Erxleben, 1777) Habitat Uygunluk Modellemesi ve Haritalaması: Akdeniz Bölgesi Örneği

Habitat management is important for the feeding, shelter and sustainability of wild animal species distributed in wide geographical areas. Fragmentation, shrinkage or extinction of habitats where wild animal species are distributed within natural ecosystems has negative effects on biodiversity. At the same time, in conservation studies on wildlife management and ecology, the destruction of these habitats is associated with the extinction of wild animal individuals. Therefore, this study aimed to present habitat suitability modeling and mapping of the Wild goat (Capra aegagrus Erxleben, 1777) species distributed in the Mediterranean region. For this purpose, the Maximum Entropy method, which provides accurate and reliable results with the least amount of data in wildlife species distribution models, was preferred. As a modeling analysis, 10% training data set was classified as 90% test data set and 5000 iterations were applied. According to the wild goat habitat suitability model results, the training data set ROC value is 0.947 and the test data set ROC value is 0.940, making it in the “very good” model category. The variables contributing to the Wild goat distribution model were found to be ruggedness index (ruggdns), annual temperature range (bio7), roughness index (roughness) and seasonal precipitation (bio15), respectively. According to the variable value results contributing to the model, habitat suitability mapping of Wild goat in the Mediterranean region was revealed. According to this mapping, suitable and unsuitable areas for Wild goat have been identified. As a result, it is thought that this large-scale mapping, which is put forward for the protection, planning and management studies of Wild goat species in the Mediterranean region, will be important for decision makers as it is digital and model-based.