Investigating the overlap of Persian leopard (Panthera pardus saxicolor) habitat with its prey (Case study: Sang-e Mes Protected Area)

The Persian leopard is the largest feline in Iran and lives in most parts of the country, except for desert areas. Awareness of the habitat needs of this species is one of the requirements of wildlife management. The aim of this study was to study the overlap between the habitat of Iranian leopard with its preys (including wild goat and chinkara (Indian gazelle)) in order to prepare the habitat suitability map of these species in the protected area of Sang-e Mes using the maximum entropy method (in Maxent software). The data used to prioritize the habitats include the species presence points based on field observations as well as the environmental variables affecting the species distribution (9 variables for each species). The results showed the AUC (Area under the ROC Curve) of 0.824 for Persian leopard, 0.787 for wild goat, and 0.740 for Indian gazelle. According to Jackknife analysis, the variables of elevation, rainfall, distance from river, distance from road, and temperature for the Persian leopard, and distance from food sources and slope for the wild goat, and distance from river and temperature for the Indian gazelle provided the most information to the model. According to the calculations, 45.19% of the suitable habitats of Persian leopard have overlaps with the habitat of the wild goat. The least overlap was reported with the species of Indian gazelle (8.51%).