Alexander Malkhasyan's research while affiliated with World Wildlife Fund and other places

... Given the conservation importance of this group [24,25], less attention has been given to the non-fragmented habitats, particularly those in high-altitude landscapes such as the Himalayas. The primary reason for this has been the inaccessibility and ruggedness of the Himalayan terrain that makes field research and monitoring challenging [26]. Such intricacy of terrain and species diversity makes it more intriguing to understand the ways by which carnivores tend to cope in such resourcescarce environments. ...

... All climatic layers associated with current conditions were masked between 46° east longitude and 45° and 39° north latitude to cover the Caucasus region. Maxent algorithm was run with a maximum of 2,500 iterations, quadratic and hinge features and default settings for convergence thresholds and regularization (Kuemmerle et al., 2020;Merow et al., 2013;Phillips & Dudík, 2008). The model used 75% of the study plots for the model creation and the rest 25% for testing. ...

... Albeit aimed at primarily detecting snow leopards, such design and site selection proved efficient at detecting livestock and other wild mammals (Rovero et al. 2020) including the Pallas's cat. Pallas's cat and snow leopard occur at similar altitudinal ranges in the Altai Mountains (Snow Leopard Network 2014, Moqanaki et al. 2019), and display a comparable marking behavior (Allen et al. 2016). Such behavioral similarity, similar habitat preferences, and the relative homogeneity of the landscape, potentially allows the 2 species to use the same marking spots (Li et al. 2013). ...

... Conservation initiatives undertaken over the past decade in the countries of Transcaucasia have led to a significant improvement in the state of leopard prey ungulate populations (Askerov et al., 2015), compared with the beginning of the 21st century (Lukarevsky et al., 2004). A logical consequence of this was the appearance in several regions of Transcaucasia at once (in the Talysh mountains, Nakhichevan (Azerbaijan), Meghri, Khosrov (Armenia) ) of not just migrants from Iran, where the reproductive core of the leopard population lives (Sanei et al., 2016), but of constantly living and breeding individuals (Askerov et al., 2015;Askerov et al., 2018). ...

... From a vegetation point of view, the deforestation necessary to create pastures in remote mountain areas implies variations in the altitudinal limits of the alpine and subalpine climatic levels (García- Ruiz et al., 2020). For animals, the most direct impacts are on wild ungulates that compete directly with livestock for habitat and food, and may even be excluded from areas with free livestock (Bleyhl et al., 2019). The arrival of thousands of ungulates suppose a large input of possible trophic resources for carnivores that also see their diet affected by the seasonal movements of transhumance (Cozza et al., 1996). ...

... A total of 48 models based on CHELSA climate variables and 75 models based on WorldClim variables were created. The models were validated using 10-fold cross-validation and the mean area under the curve (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve [62]. The AUC (the area under the ROC curve) is believed to be one of the best options for estimating the appropriateness of a species environment, especially when background data are used [63]. ...

... The striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena) distributed patchily in a vast geographic range from Africa to central Asia and India [13], but occurs at low population densities throughout its range, with many populations already extirpated [14,15]. It is listed as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List due to persecution, decreasing natural and domestic sources of carrion due to declines in the populations of other large carnivores including wolf (Canis lupus), cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus), leopard (Panthera pardus), lion (Panthera leo), and tiger (Panthera tigris), diminishing prey populations, and changes in livestock husbandry practices [14,[16][17][18][19][20]. The population of Iranian hyenas has also been decreasing as a result of poisoning, direct killing, and traffic accidents [21]. ...

... The population density is much lower in adjacent countries to Iran and in the Caucasus region; for example, 0.5 individuals/100 km² in Armenia (Khorozyan et al., 2008). The relatively higher population density of Persian Leopards in the Bamo and Khoshk Mountains (1.25 indivuduals/100 km 2 ) may be due to the following factors: the availability of prey in sufficient numbers (Wild Boars and Bezoar Goats) (Farhadinia et al., 2018); reproduction of the Persian Leopard in our study area, while in other areas with low Leopard density only a few individuals observed showed no evidence of breeding (Khorozyan et al., 2008;Askerov et al., 2015;Avgan et al., 2016); presence of water as a limiting natural resource in the study area, which maximized the capture probabilities of more individuals (three individuals out of five were recorded on the water sources) (Farhandina et al., 2019); or might be due to this study being conducted in small "hotspots" of Leopard presence. The latter aspect could give an overestimation of the population density. ...

... Trade in specimens of these species is permitted only in exceptional circumstances (e.g., scientific research) c Animal and plant species of community interest whose conservation requires the designation of special areas of conservation d Animal and plant species of community interest in need of strict protection Mediterranean islands are of conservation concern (Cassola 1985;Shackleton and IUCN/SSC Caprinae Specialist Group 1997;Hadjisterkotis and Lovari 2016;Portanier et al. 2022) and often benefit locally of a protection status (e.g., for Cyprus: "The Protection and Development of Game and Wild Birds Law of 1974 (39/1974), article 9," for Corsica: "Ministerial order of 1st March 2019, NOR: TREL1824291A"; see also Apollonio et al. 2010). Though not always assessed, several threats have been identified in these areas: poaching, hunting (nontarget species) and associated disturbance, habitat loss (e.g., forest encroachment), hybridization with sheep and more generally loss of genetic diversity related to population isolation, competition and sharing of pathogens with domestic herds, and development of recreational activities in natural areas (Hadjisterkotis 2001;Rieu 2007;Khorozyan et al. 2009;Talibov et al. 2009;Bleyhl et al. 2018;Satta et al. 2021;Brivio et al. 2022). In its Caucasian original range, competition with herds of several hundreds of domestic sheep, usually accompanied by several shepherds and 1-4 dogs/100 sheep, is a key issue since it might have pushed mouflon into marginal habitats (Khorozyan et al. 2009;Talibov et al. 2009;Bleyhl et al. 2018;Brivio et al. 2022). ...

... In the USSR, before the 1970s, leopards and other large predators had been considered as vermin and intensively wiped out under state support. In 1972, the leopard was officially declared a protected species, and in 1987, it was included in the Red Data Book as "endangered" (Khorozyan et al. 2007(Khorozyan et al. , 2011. In 2008, the Caucasian or Persian leopard (Panthera pardus ciscaucasica = P.p. saxicolor = P.p.tulliana) living in the region was designated by the 2008 IUCN Red List as "endangered" (EN C2a(i); Khorozyan 2008) and its updated status assessment is pending now. ...