A Revised Map of Plant Geographical Regions of the Southern Levant

We propose a revised map of plant geographical regions for the Southern Levant (most of Israel, the Palestinian Territories and Jordan). Since this region has been heavily impacted by human activity over millennia we have created a detailed natural vegetation map using GIS, remote sensing and a species distribution model (MAXENT). We created an extensive database of over 1800 historical and field observations for the region, incorporating plant species presence-only data, as well as environmental variables, including temperature and precipitation. Vegetation was modeled according to plant geographical regions and vegetation types. Our revised map generally agrees with previous vegetation maps done for the region, but provides more detail regarding the distribution of various forested communities that have been significantly disturbed by millennia of human activity. Given its digital format, this new map can be used for conservation and other applications that require a vegetation surface. It can also be used as a basis with which to model vegetated environments in past and future scenarios.