Data for: Habitat suitability of the Persian leopard along the Iran-Iraq border

Habitat fragmentation has major negative impacts on wildlife populations and the connectivity could reduce these negative impacts. This study was conducted to assess habitat suitability and structural connectivity of the Persian leopard along the Iran-Iraq border (i.e., the Zagros Mountains) and compare the situation of identified core habitats and connectivity with existing conservation areas (CAs). An ensemble modeling approach resulting from five models was used to predict habitat suitability. To identify core habitats and corridors along the Iran-Iraq border, factorial least-cost path analyses were applied. The results revealed that topographic roughness, distance to conservation areas, annual precipitation, vegetation/cropland density and distance to rivers were the most influential variables for predicting the occurrence of the Persian leopard in the study area. By an estimated dispersal distance of 82 km (suggested by previous studies), three core habitats were identified (two co...