ECOLOGICAL NICHE MODELLING OF HIMALAYAN LANGUR (Semnopithecus entellus) IN SOUTHERN FLANK OF THE HIMALAYA
Keywords:
Colobines, Ecological niche, River basins, Nepal Himalaya, PopulationAbstract
The species and subspecies status of various populations of the Himalayan langur (Semnopithecus entellus) have been disputed in many literatures. Before delineating the taxonomic boundaries, it is important to identify the potential distribution areas of extant populations of the species. Ecological niche modeling (ENM) can be coupled with the systematic survey of species presence to identify the species’ potential distribution range. Therefore, we did extensive survey and population census of the Himalayan langur across three major river basins (Koshi, Gandaki and Karnali) of Nepal and analyzed the population patterns. In addition, we also modelled the ecological niche of the species by using maximum entropy (MaxEnt) algorithm. We counted a total of 559 individuals from 33 troops that accounted the average troop size of 16.94 (±8.39) individuals. Within Nepal territory, the highest population of langurs was observed from the Gandaki River basin followed by the Karnali River basin. We revealed that Himalayan langurs have a wide range of altitudinal (49 m - 4190 m above sea level) distributions from Bhutan to Kashmir across southern flank of the Himalaya. We warrant for the detail distribution assessment and taxonomic analysis of Himalayan langurs using ecological, morphological and genetic variables.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
The copyright of the articles is held by the Institute of Science and Technology, Tribhuvan University (IoST- TU). The views and interpretations in this journal are those of the author(s). They are not attributable to the IoST-TU and do not imply the expression of any opinion concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city, area of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The corresponding author is responsible for any conflict of interest between authors and others.
The articles in the Journal of Institute of Science and Technology are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- Share Alike 4.0 International License (CC: BY-NC), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, remix, transfer, and build upon the materials for any purpose, even commercially, provided the original work is properly cited.
