Ecological niche modeling of two scorpion species Mesobuthus eupeus (C. L. Koch, 1839) and M. phillipsii (Pocock, 1889) from the Iranian Plateau and Zagros region (Arachnida: Scorpiones)

Abstract

Ecological niche modeling has allowed several advances in the process of species delimitation. In the present study, I used this method to evaluate the climatic divergence between two scorpion species, Mesobuthus eupeus and M. phillipsii. The ecological niche models (ENMs) were created based on presence-only data with the maximum entropy method. The created models, results of spatial analysis (PCA and Hotelling discriminant), and an identity test suggested that the divergence between these two species is associated with significant divergence in their ecological niches. The results of this study provide additional support for the taxonomic validity the studied species.