Our recent paper published in the journal Ecology and Evolution in January 2023 addressed the use of natural mineral licks by deer species in northern Iran.
They are ecologically valuable resources to meet the physiological needs of herbivores, particularly in temperate forests. Importantly, licking sites can harbor high anthropogenic risk for conservation-dependent herbivores through higher chance of pathogen spillover from livestock and increased levels of poaching risks.
We monitored four naturally occurring mineral licks in Central Alborz Protected Area, northern Iran using camera traps and analyzed the mineral content of the licking sites.
The species-level distribution of visits corresponded to diurnal and cathemeral for Caspian red deer and for roe deer, respectively, without any evidence of different activity curves.
There was a negative nonlinear relationship between the ambient temperature and the visitation rate. Our findings showed that mineral licks are important habitat features for these large herbivores and need to be included in spatial mapping and habitat protection measures.
A big thanks to rangers protecting these amazing species and also helping us to collect data. In this paper, 5 rangers whose assistance in data collection was instrumental are present as co-authors.
The paper can be found open access here: