Has Endangered Anatolian Chamois a Future at Lesser Caucasus Alpine Grasslands?

Date

2022-04-19

Author

Ambarli, Hüseyin
Ambarlı, Didem

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Anatolian chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra asiatica) is the onlyendangered chamois subspecies and lonely distributed at Alpinegrasslands in northeastern Turkey and along the border ofGeorgia. There have been extremely limited studies about thespecies because of the difficulties in habitat accessibility and speciesdetectability. From former observations, it seems that Anatolianchamois has probably different habitat requirements than itscounterparts in Europe. Its distribution and population in the lastthree decades dramatically declined, but it has been also probablyrecovering at some remote montane habitats in the last years.Our aim is to reveal the current distribution, temporal changein the area of occupancy, and habitat preference of this endangeredspecies. We collected presence data between 2002-2018by direct observations during field studies, camera trap studies,citizen-science data, and trophy hunting locations in eastern andnorth-eastern Turkey (Lesser Caucasus) and southwestern Georgia.The study area is about 300,000 km2. We conducted habitatsuitability modeling with environmental variables includingclimate, vegetation cover, terrain, elevation, human disturbance,food availability, and interspecific competition. We used regression-based models including a generalized linear model in R andmaximum entropy modeling by MaxEnt software. The best-predictedmodel showed that maximum temperature, terrain type,elevation, and human disturbance are the most important variablesfor species distribution and suitable habitats. The predictedsuitable habitats are much smaller than the former habitats of thespecies, but still suitable alpine habitats are larger than the currentdistribution. Anatolian chamois use mostly alpine grasslandsexcept during snowing in wintertime. In conclusion, there are stillsuitable alpine grassland habitats to sustain viable populationsof Anatolian chamois in the Lesser Caucasus, but human disturbanceincluding trophy hunting, infrastructural constructions, andmining activities specifically above 2000 m on Alpine grasslandhabitats of Anatolian chamois should be restricted.

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https://hdl.handle.net/11511/106681

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Department of Biology, Conference / Seminar