‌Prioritizing and Evaluating Conservation Areas: A case for the Threatened Ecosystem Engineer the Egyptian Dabb lizard Uromastyx aegyptia in the Eastern Desert of Egypt.

Nagy, Abdullah M.; Mohallal, Eman M. E.; El-Kafrawy, Sameh; Saber, Samy A.

doi:10.21608/eajbsz.2022.246343

‌Prioritizing and Evaluating Conservation Areas: A case for the Threatened Ecosystem Engineer the Egyptian Dabb lizard Uromastyx aegyptia in the Eastern Desert of Egypt.

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Zoology department, Faculty of Science, Al Azhar University in Cairo.

² Ecology unit of desert animals, Desert research center.

³ Department of Marine Sciences, National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences (NARSS), Egypt.

10.21608/eajbsz.2022.246343

Abstract

The rapidity of the global biome changes caused by humans exceeds the slow resilience of ecosystems, especially fragile biomes such as deserts. Habitat destruction is the main threat to biodiversity loss, it is seventy times more threatening than climate change. Quantifying and mapping habitat destruction is essential for biodiversity conservation plans, as it quantifies the remaining habitats and prioritizes the most important and threatened habitats. Using remote sensing and GIS, The Egyptian Dabb lizard Uromastyx aegyptia distribution in the eastern desert of Egypt was modeled and its destroyed suitable habitats were mapped and quantified. Precipitation seasonality was the most important variable contributing to the species' habitat suitability as well as NDVI. Two regions were identified as suitable, nearly half (44%) of the northern suitable region is destroyed, and the rest is low-quality habitat. In the southern region, there is an expansion in energy projects that lies in the most important areas for Dabb lizard conservation. A great conservation opportunity could be seized if energy projects considered activating and implementing their biodiversity conservation plans.

Keywords