Habitat suitability for the Caucasian frog Rana macrocnemis Boulenger, 1885 (Amphibia:Anura: Ranidae)

Abstract

Modeling the distribution patterns of species is a generally efficient tool to assess their ecological characteristics. In this study, we compared ecological niche factor analysis (ENFA) and maximum entropy (Maxent) techniques to predict the most suitable distribution range of Rana macrocnemis. The Maxent model predicted potential suitable habitats for R. macrocnemis with high success rates (AUC Training data = 0.877 ± 0.039). According to the map constructed, three important variables had high contribution to species presence: temperature (50.4%), land cover (24.6%) and elevation (14.4%) variables. The ENFA results were relatively similar to Maxent jackknife analysis. The results implied that R. macrocnemis prefers grassland and needle leaf deciduous forest with high elevations, and low temperature.