Modelling habitat suitability and estimating protected areas coverage for Falco cherrug across its wintering habitats

The saker falcon (Falco cherrug) is an Endangered avian predator that faces multiple threats within its wintering habitats, particularly in Iran. In this study, we aimed to model habitat suitability across the species' wintering range, identify the key environmental predictors of suitable habitat, and assess the extent to which these habitats are covered by protected areas in Iran. We applied an ensemble habitat suitability modeling approach (Generalised Boosting Models (GBM), Support Vector Machines (SVM), Maximum Entropy modelling (Maxent), and Random Forest (RF)) to predict the distribution of suitable wintering habitats for the saker falcon across Iran. Our results indicate that the most suitable wintering habitats are concentrated in northeastern and southern Iran, especially around the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Annual precipitation with 41% contribution, NDVI with 21% contribution and distance from shrublands with 15% contribution emerged as the most influential predictors of habitat suitability. We also found that suitable habitats for the saker falcon are poorly represented within the current protected areas network. The suitable but unprotected habitats identified in this study may play a crucial role in the conservation of the species and should therefore be considered for inclusion within the protected areas system. Overall, our findings provide important insights for the conservation of this Endangered falcon, benefiting not only its wintering populations in Iran but also its global populations.