Abstract: In this study, 65 occurrence locations of wild roe deer (Capreolus pygargus) were collected through field surveys in mountainous areas around Beijing from July 2019 to February 2021. By selecting 22 environmental variables that affect the distribution of wild roe deer, the maximum entropy model (MaxEnt) was used to predict the potential distribution of wild roe deer in mountainous areas around Beijing. The results showed that the AUC (area under the curve) value of the training set was 0.863, and that the prediction accuracy was high. The cumulative contribution rate of mean temperature of the warmest quarter, precipitation of the wettest month, altitude, mean diurnal range, precipitation of the driest month, maximum temperature of the warmest month, temperature seasonality and slope was 90.9%, indicating that those factors were the main environmental variables affecting the habitat suitability of wild roe deer in mountainous areas around Beijing. According to the simulation results of MaxEnt model, the potential suitable habitats could be classified into four classes: highly suitable, moderately suitable, lowly suitable, and unsuitable. The area of potentially suitable habitats for wild roe deer in mountainous areas around Beijing was 3947.6 km², accounting for 24.1% of the whole area. The suitable habitats of wild roe deer were mainly located in the piedmont of Taihang Mountain in western Beijing and the piedmont of Yanshan Mountain in northeastern Beijing, with a few patches in northern Beijing. The highly suitable area was 319.8 km², accounting for 2.0% of the whole area. Based on the results, habitat protection should be strengthened in Baihuashan National Nature Reserve and Wulingshan National Nature Reserve, where suitable habitats for wild roe deer were concentrated. The connectivity of wild roe deer habitats in areas such as Yanggou Primary Forest Park and Mangshan National Forest Park with patchy distributions of habitats should be increased through vegetation conservation and habitat corridor construction.

Key words: Capreolus pygargus, mountainous areas around Beijing, maximum entropy model (MaxEnt), habitat suitability.