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Mammalian species inhabiting arid landscapes exhibit various levels of mobility in order to cope with unpredictable spatiotemporal dispersion of resources. However, the space use and ranging behavior of many species in drylands is poorly understood, especially for large carnivores in Asia. Accommodating the long-distance movements of mammalian carnivores is a major challenge in conservation, particularly for threatened and highly mobile species. The Asiatic cheetah Acinonyx jubatus venaticus , a critically endangered subspecies found only in arid areas of Iran, exhibits high levels of mobility. In the absence of satellite collars, this paper outlines ranging patterns of the majority of the Asiatic cheetah’s known population. A total of 17 independent cheetahs (11 males; 6 females) were detected with camera traps that were deployed on eight reserves between January 2011 and May 2016. The animals displayed extensive movements (up to 217 km between furthest known locations) and at least nine adult cheetahs were known to move between multiple reserves in central Iran. This mobility may follow a “nomadic” ranging pattern, a non-sedentary behavior with irregular timing and movement directions. The ranging behavior documented here must be considered when designing monitoring efforts to determine population and occupancy trends for this wide-ranging elusive carnivore. Although preliminary, our results show that improving protection beyond the current network of cheetah reserves, particularly along corridors, should be a top priority to safeguard the persistence of the Asiatic cheetah. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Although many papers have been published on the role of wind speed on wind erosion, most of them did not consider the probability or return period of wind speed and its role in wind erosion. This study deals with this characteristic of wind speed in arid and semi-arid regions of Iran. Because at-site frequency analysis is not sufficient for extending wind frequency to locations with no data, the method of L-moments was applied for regional frequency analysis. The results of this study showed the Generalized Logistic (GLOG) distribution model to be the best regional distribution model for 3-h maximum mean annual wind speeds within homogeneous region based on goodness-of-fit test measurement, Z Dist. The extension of different wind quantiles to the region showed that the center, southwestern and northwestern parts of the study area could be more vulnerable regions to wind erosion than other parts. The comparison of wind energy for different wind speed return periods indicates a nonlinear trend in wind energy when the return periods increase. Therefore, it is important to apply wind frequency analysis in wind erosion control projects because the risk of higher wind speed does not increase with linear function. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]