The Middle East is an important zone for a considerable number of bird taxa from the western and eastern Palearctic and from the arid belt of Africa. We digitized and analyzed the geographical distribution maps of Passerine birds in the Middle East using WORLDMAP software.The map of the Middle East region was divided to 1º × 1º grid cells (total grid cell area: 4062km2). Analyzing the geographic distribution of species richness for our data set depicted the highest richness mostly located in the Alborz and Zagros Mountains in the south of the Caspian Sea and Caucasus and the lowest species richness observed in the south of the Middle East such as the Sahara of Africa and Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Oman, Kuwait, Iraq, Bahrain and Central parts of Iran. Spatial patterns of species richness are also congruent with climatic and environmental variation. Our results demonstrated that two factors, annual precipitation and mean diurnal range show the largest contribution to the distribution pattern of passerine birds in the Middle East.

Keywords