The potential distribution and a new locality record of Roughtail Rock Agama (Stellagama stellio) from northwestern Anatolıa

Abstract

Reptiles have been distributed in limited or wide areas, therefore it is well known that distribution dynamics are affected by several abiotic and biotic factors. While this situation constituted their habitat requirements, it also provides the suitable conditions that species can maintain their population within their distribution area. Although S. stellio was distributed in a wide area in the Anatolian Peninsula, its distribution in the Black Sea region was limited and has only been reported from a single locality so far. With this study, another locality was added to the distribution area of the species in the Black Sea region, and this record constitutes the northwesternmost locality of the species in the distribution area. Therefore, the present study not only contributes the species distribution trend, but also provides its habitat suitability analysis via Species Distribution Model (SDM) under current bioclimatic conditions in the Anatolian Peninsula. SDM results demonstrated that S. stellio has an adaptation to the warm and rainy climatic regimes in terms of habitat requirements. Lastly, it is recommended to compare the genetic background of this population with other populations among Turkey.