Maapping habitat suitability of the brown bear (Ursus arctos) in Artvin-Şavşat region

In this thesis, it was aimed to build habitat suitability models and maps for Brown bear (Ursus arctos), which are distributed in the Artvin-Şavşat region during different seasons. Between May 2018 and May 2020, 200 camera traps were established in the study area using the opportunist camera trap method. More than 280.000 images were captured over the course of 121.140 camera trap days, with 27.856 of these images including 12 different mammalian wild animal species. Furthermore, 1.860 Brown bear were detected in 27.856 images. After these images were analyzed, the density and population size of Brown bear in the study area were estimated as 23 individuals/100 km2 and 310 individuals, respectively. The Maximum Entropy approach, which runs using only presence data, was employed for the habitat suitability model and mapping of the target species during different seasons. The relationship between 30 different independent variables and the presence data of the bear species in the spring, summer, autumn and winter seasons was modeled. The difference between the training and test data sets of ROC scores for each model was taken into account when selecting the most supported model among the several models obtained. The model for the spring season (ROC:0.911-0.906); was formed by the corine land use class, slope class, roughness index, annual average temperature, annual precipitation, road density and elevation. The model built for the summer season (ROC:0.914-0.908); was framed by corine land use class, slope class, roughness index, annual mean temperature, road density and elevation. Corine land use class, slope class, roughness index, seasonal precipitation, distance to settlement, annual average temperature, road density and elevation contributed to the model created for the autumn season (ROC:0.916-0.904). A map revealing the regions which are vital for the Brown bear within the scope of sustainable forestry was created by overlapping habitat suitability maps from three separate seasons.