2.2. Species Occurrence Localities
The primary vegetation map ofZ. spina-christi andZ. nummularia was sourced from the Iran Research Institute of Forest and Rangeland (IRIFR) from 1988 to 2016. This map served as the foundation for delineating the spatial distribution of these two species and identifying their respective presence locations. Comprehensive field surveys were conducted from October 2021 to April 2022 to gather information on the presence locations of both Z. spina-christiand Z. nummularia . The efforts acquired 419 presence locations for Z. spina-christi and 161 presence locations for Z. nummularia .
To mitigate spatial autocorrelation and prevent model overfitting, a spatial filter with a radius of 1 kilometer was applied, utilizing the SDM Toolbox as described by Mahmoodi et al. in 2022. Additionally, the global Moran’s I statistic was computed, following the methodology outlined by Dormann et al. in 2007, using ArcGIS software (version 10.8.1). Subsequently, a refined dataset consisting of 348 presence locations for Z. spina-christi and 130 presence locations forZ. nummularia was used to construct the climate niche models for these species (see Fig. 1).