3.3 Connectivity
Our connectivity simulation modeling for grey wolf revealed high
connectivity areas in the Southern parts of the study area. A total of
25.18 % of the extent of this corridor network is covered with PAs
(Figure 5 and Table 3). Most of the identified corridor networks for the
golden jackal occurred in the Southern parts of the study area. Of the
predicted corridor paths of the species, 19.11 % are covered by
Protected Areas Networks (Figure 5 and Table 3). Our analysis showed
that most predicted corridor paths for both species are bisected
multiple times by roads (Figure 5 and Table 3).
Fig 5. UNICOR corridor pathways for the golden jackal (A) and the grey
wolf (B) in Central Iran.
Table 3: The extent and percent of corridors covered by current
conservation networks for golden jackal and grey wolf in Central Iran.
The median value of habitat suitability for presence points was used as
threshold to define the highly suitable habitats.