Podarcis muralis in Vojvodina, Serbia, the spatial niche of an “urban citizen” in a highly anthropogenically modified region

Abstract

Urbanized areas are an important feature of European landscapes and home to numerous wildlife species, whose existence sometimes depends on these areas. In this study, we assessed the factors influencing the distribution of Podarcis muralis in Vojvodina region. Majority of the landscape in this region was converted to agricultural and urbanized areas with related infrastructure (embankments of canals, roads, and railroads). There is very little of preserved natural habitats left. This study aims to contribute to reevaluation of ecological and conservational status of this species in urban and suburban ecosystems of this region, where it represents a constant faunistic element. To do so, we constructed ecological niche models (ENM) for this region based on more than 300 species occurrence findings and a set of 41 orographic, climatic, land-cover, and water-regime ecogeographic variables. Two modeling approaches were used: ENFA and MaxEnt. Based on model results we created habitat suitability maps that visualized ecological space and the factors affecting species’ distribution. Our results suggest that the ecological determinants of the species’ spatial niche in Vojvodina are defined almost exclusively by habitat land-cover variables, especially those describing urban fabric: distance from urbanized areas, frequency, and edge length of urban areas. The species shows a preference towards close proximity and high frequency of urban and suburban areas, and edges of urbanized areas, but clearly avoids areas with a high frequency of agricultural habitats. These results are in line with the biology of this species. We conclude that the common wall lizard successfully adapted to the distinctive environmental and habitat conditions in Vojvodina with a clear pattern in its spatial niche characteristics which prompt the reevaluation of common agricultural and urban maintenance practices.