Ochotona nubrica
Univariate models - Comparison of univariate models at
different scales prior to model building revealed that more relative
percentage of bush cover, more number of shrubs, a greater height of
shrubs, and large mature stands of tall grass and reeds were significant
for predicting the presence of ON across all scales (Table C2). At the
larger Ladakh scale, variables related to rocks (negatively) and NDVI
across seasons (positively) were important in explaining the presence ofON (Table C2). In the North-West, presence was associated with
NDVI (positively) and reflected greener habitats that the species
occupies. Details of univariate models run can be found in Supplementary
material (Table S6, Table S7, Table S8).
Multivariate models - At the Ladakh scale, the
purposeful model (Model 2) produced the best results; the sub-modeling
approach (Model 3) was best for the South-East, while at the West-Ladakh
scale, all three modeling approaches produced equally good results
(Table 2). At the Ladakh spatial scale, variables that predicted the
absence of the species included cover and number of large-sized rocks,
and variables that predicted the presence of the species, such as the
cover of shrubs and NDVI, were important (Table 2). In the South-East,
only variables related to vegetation and mainly shrubs were important in
explaining the presence of the species (Table 2). In the North-West,
different NDVI variables (for different modeling approaches) and mature
stands of tall grass and reeds were necessary to explain the species’
presence, although the species was restricted to large mature stands of
Sea buckthorn (Table 2).