Biogeography and hotspots of mammalian species of Iran: implications to reserve selection and conservation

Abstract

Studies on species‘ biogeography, biodiversity are of remarkable significance in biogeographic regionalization and systematic conservation. In this study, distributional information of 172 mammalian species was accumulated to build a database in Iran. The geographical distribution and species richness maps of mammalian species of Iran were analysed by Geographical Information System (GIS). The hotspots were defined as the richness cells in number of species in a global equal-area grid cell map comparable to 1° latitude 1° longitude. Latitudinal distributional pattern and IUCN categories of species in Iran were also evaluated. Our results indicated that the hotspots of mammalian species of Iran with 53 species are located in the north to northwestern Iran where two mountain ranges, Alborz and Zagros, meet each other. Other hotspots were mainly placed in most areas of Zanjan, east of Ghazvin, in south of East-Azerbaijan, east of Kurdistan and east of West-Azarbaijan provinces. Of 172 species of mammals where breeding in Iran about 6.6% and 4.8% of species are vulnerable threat and Endangered species respectively. Our result highly in congruent with the hotspot richness pattern of songbirds in Iran. Complementarity rarity-based analysis could be represented on 200 optimal grid cells in which the entire mammalian species in Iran are included based on IUCN rarity values categories. This study as the first attempt to combine quantitative analysis for mammalian species distribution in Iran could be a bases for further complementary studies.