Distribution and habitat suitability modelling of the regionally endangered Common Leopard in Ayubia National Park

The common leopard (Panthera pardus) is one of the large carnivore species distributed in different regions of the world, including the Himalayan foothills of Pakistan. The range of this species has been restricted and narrowed down due to urbanization, human intrusion, commercialization, and deforestation activities. Habitat suitability models (HSMs) are widely used for better identification of niche requirements, prioritising conservation management concerns of threatened species. The present research study aimed to determine the common leopard's current distribution range and suitable habitat within Ayubia National Park (ANP), Pakistan, and vicinity through maximum entropy (Maxent) modelling. The Common leopard was recorded at altitudes between 1367m-2972m asl with a mean elevation of 2434 ± 24.91 (m ± S.E.) during winter, while 2375m ± 40.77 during summer in the area. The average test AUC for the replicate runs was 0.95 with a standard deviation of 0.016. Habitat suitability index showed a 6% highly suitable and 11% moderately suitable habitat within the 5Km area of the national park. The most significant predictor was proximity to roads (39.3%) with the permutation importance of 28.4%, while the least significant was settlement area (7.7%) with the permutation importance of 29%. Bioclimatic variables, i.e., bio_19 (12.3% contribution, 5.2% permutation importance), bio_17 (11.5% contribution, 0.9% permutation importance), and bio_14 (9.5% contribution, 0.8% permutation importance) have the highest percentage contribution among the bioclimatic factors and DEM showed relatively low percentage contribution (2.6%) yet high permutation importance (20.2%). This model suggests that a relatively small percentage of the land (17%) is suitable for the common leopard in the area, suggesting forest conservation as a critical measure for the species' survival and/or it’s conservation.