Assessing wildfire impact on Trigonella elliptica habitat using random forest modeling

Wildfires have a significant impact on ecosystems worldwide, especially on the degradation of arid and semi-arid rangelands. This research focuses on assessing the effects of wildfires on the habitat of Trigonella elliptica, a valuable herb species found in the central rangelands of Iran. To achieve this, the Random Forest (RF) algorithm has been deployed to predict T. elliptica habitat and fire hazard using socio-environmental variables in Yazd province, Iran. 225 fire points and 103 habitat locations were used for model training and testing. The IncNodePurity index and Probability Curves (PC) have been utilized to determine the influence of socio-environmental variables. The combination of the prediction maps of the habitat and wildfires pointed out the possible damage due to fire. The high performance of the RF model is confirmed by the area under the curve (AUC) and the true skill statistic (TSS) values (0.90 and 0.81 for the habitat; 0.92 and 0.82 for the wildfire). The importance assessment of variables revealed that elevation, slope, and precipitation are the most influential variables in the distribution of T. elliptica, while distance to roads, population density, and wind speed are the key factors affecting wildfire occurrence. In the final map, a comparison of different regions of T. elliptica habitat under fire hazard with fire-free habitats using Kruskal-Wallis and Dunn tests indicated that the fire hazard in the T. elliptica habitat is a serious concern. Since the areas with the highest fire hazard and the highest presence of T. elliptica cover approximately 2311.38 km², neglecting these regions could lead to the gradual reduction of T. elliptica, and create conditions for secondary succession dominated by less valuable annual species. The findings of this study underscore the importance of implementing fire management strategies, protection projects, and continuous monitoring to ensure the safety and conservation of the T. elliptica habitat.