Habitat probability prediction of umbrella species in urban ecosystems including habitat suitability of prey species

Habitat management through distribution tracking of umbrella species has been used to improve urban ecosystem health and sustainability to enhance the life quality of citizens. However, there are practical limitations to the application of habitat distribution analysis methods applied to urban ecosystems due to human disturbance. Considering additional habitat suitability information of prey species, the prediction of habitat reflecting complex urban environmental characteristics would be improved in Suwon city, South Korea. The habitat probability of Strigidae, which is an umbrella species of Suwon city, and prey species is predicted using the Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) model. We determined whether the inclusion of prey species habitat probability in that of Strigidae can improve the prediction as well as has the same effect for a Eurasian hobby (Falco Subbuteo) like Strigidae. The performance of MaxEnt was improved when not only environmental variables but also prey species habitat probability is added. When the presence information was sampled by the k-fold method, the probability of detection of surveyed points was improved by 1.38 times. Our results indicate that prey species information is important to both Strigidae and the Eurasian hobby. Therefore, using prey species habitat information can improve the reliability of habitat analysis by supplementing information and reflect complex urban ecosystems.