Ecological niche overlap between Snake-eyed Skinks, Ablepharus bivittatus, Ablepharus grayanus and Ablepharus pannonicus

In this research for quantizing the data on ecological overlap processes and describing the ecological tolerance of populations and species the Schoener s D and I indices of ENM software were used. The range of these indices for species is between zero (difference of habitats) and one (similarity of the habitats). In the ENM software, taxa arecompared to each other. For testing the similarity of the habitat used identity test and background test. Based on the results, the amount of common ecological niche based on D and I indices between A. bivittatus with A. grayanus and A. bivittatus with A. pannonicus is very low that shows different ecological factors affect their habitat. But A. pannonicus and A. grayanus having more common ecological niche indicating that similar ecological factors affect their habitat. Whatever emerged from the identity and background tests showed that Iranian species of the Snake-eyed Skinks have been established in their ecological niche with minimum ecological niche overlap

Keywords:

Niche overlap , Snake , Habitat