PREDICTING HABITAT SUITABILITY OF Pistacia atlantica DESF WITH MAXENT AND GIS IN THE NORTHWESTERN REGIONS OF ALGERIA
MOHAMMED DJEBBOURI *
Laboratory of Water Resources and Environment, Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Saida - Dr. Tahar Moulay, Saida, Algeria.
FATIMA ZOHRA YAHIAOUI
Laboratory of Water Resources and Environment, Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Saida - Dr. Tahar Moulay, Saida, Algeria.
MOHAMED TERRAS
Laboratory of Water Resources and Environment, Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Saida - Dr. Tahar Moulay, Saida, Algeria.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Pistacia atlantica is a tree species, in Algeria that are included in the list of protected species and considered endangered. Prediction of the potential geographic distribution of this species and mapping of the most habitat suitability to promote their introduction are important from the point of view of their conservation and restoration. 23 environmental variables, as well as a total of 296 points of presence were used to predict the potential distribution of Pistacia atlantica in an area of 62 203 km2 using Maxent modelling. The Maxent model was evaluated using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) and the True Skill Statistics (TSS). The model generated was rated excellent (AUC> 0.94, TSS = 0.78). The results of this study present the most appropriate areas of this species and provide a useful reference for the implementation of conservation and management strategies for this species in the study area.
Keywords: Pistacia atlantica Desf, conservation, habitat suitability, Maxent, northwestern regions of Algeria