Modeling the potential distribution areas for a given species is important in understanding the relationship between the actual distribution and the most suitable habitat for a species. In this study, we obtained all available records of Trapelus ruderatus and Trapelus persicus from museums, literature and fieldwork and used them with environmental layers in the Maximum Entropy algorithm to predict highly suitable habitat areas. The distribution model of T. ruderatus and T. persicus showed excellent performance for both models (T. ruderatus AUC = 0.964 ± 0.001 and T. persicus AUC = 0.996 ± 0.003), and predicted suitable regions in Iran, Turkey, Iraq and Syria. Niche overlap was measured between the two groups by ENMtools and 13% overlapped. We used a niche identity test to determine differences between the niches of the two species. Finally, by comparing our null hypothesis to the true niche overlap of the two species, we were able to reject our null hypothesis of no difference between the niches. Due to the sympatric distribution pattern of these species, we do not need a background test for niche divergence.

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