| With the increasing of off-road and outdoor ecotourism, wildlife encountered more and more harassment from the human. While we cannot only prohibit human go into protected area simply. On the one hand, we should provide more place to the people, on the other hand, ecotourism can produce money on protection. Wildlife managers and conservationists are looking forward to find a way to make the coexistence of the wildlife and ecotourism. But it was necessary to know how about the flight responses of the wildlife at first.Different species had different flight responses to anthropogenic disturbance, the different history of contacting with human also had effect on the flight responses. Helan Mountain is the north boundary of distribution area for blue sheep (Pseudois nayaur). the density is much higher than any other areas, and was inhabited in lower elevation, so it is easier to contact in this place. At the same time, researchers in our lab had done works on the group type, home range size, population dynamic, life table, and so on, there are some basic data on blue sheep in Ningxia Helan Mountain National Nature Reserve. That can provide ways to explain the flight responses of the species.Wildlife in different density encountered different intraspecific competition, which had some effect on the decision in flight responses of wildlife, for the substitute place was an important factor on the trade-off of stay or flee. We analyzed population dynamics of blue sheep in recent years, and then observed flight responses of them. The results can be seen below:1、We surveyed36line transects in the reserve seasonally from October to December,2010, used Distance6.0to estimate the density of blue sheep, the result was6.08(5.01～7.38)sheep/km2. The density from5.63sheep/km2to6.48sheep/km2in four seasons, but had no significant difference in the season of the reserve (χ2=0.00, df=3, P=1.00). Population size about11,767(9,696～14,282) in the reserve, a little higher than that in2003(Z=1.98, P=0.048). Detection function showed that most of blue sheep could be encountered near than200m.2^Long-term studies of population dynamics are important for conservation biology and wildlife management. We conducted2,790line transects and observed12,516blue sheep from2004to2009in the Ningxia Helan Mountain National Nature Reserve of China, and found the distribution of blue sheep was uneven in the reserve, then classified the reserve into no distribution, low density area, middle density area and high density area according to the encounter rates of the6years. No distribution area lied in the edge of reserve, the difference in elevation was less between the highest and lowest place and with heavier anthropogenic disturbance; low density area mainly in the north part of the reserve, middle density area mainly in the south part, high density area mainly in the middle part. Rainfall and vegetation cover may influent the density of blue sheep in the reserve.3、Result of general linear models (GLM:univariate) showed that the encounter rates was mainly decided by the area (F=55.96, P=0.00), not varied among years (F=0.21, P=0.96), and there had no interaction between them. Year also had no effects on the group size (F=0.48, P=0.19) and no interaction with density area (F=0.71, P=0.71), but group size different significant among density areas (F=10.75, P=0.00). Group size in high density area (Mean±SD:8.48±5.55) was bigger than that in middle density area (6.12±5.25) and low density area (4.60±3.64). Group size had significant correlations with encounter rates (linear regression model:Y=0.80+0.36encounter rate, radj2=0.46, F=138.28, P<0.001). 4. Population size of the blue sheep fluctuated from12,375in2004to8,188in2006then13,344in2009, but did not ascend or decline continuously. Population size varied among6years in the reserve (χ2=972.21, df=5, P<0.001), the variation accompanied with rainy days during previous year (r=0.93, P=0.008). So rainy days maybe the cause of variation in blue sheep population size. Ratios between female and male, female and juvenile, adult and juvenile had no difference in each density area among6years, but varied among density areas (P<0.05). Adult female blue sheep was the most animal in the reserve.5^According to the anthropogenic disturbance, we categorized the reserve into5parts:two on-trail area (A4:Dashuigou on-trail; A5:Suyukou on-trail) and3parts with less human disturbance (Al:Dashuigou off-trail; A2:Maliankou; A3: Suyukou off-trail). We used flight initiation distance (FID)and final distance (FD) to evaluate the flight responses of blue sheep. Used general linear models (univariate) to analyze the effects of area, group size and season on the flight responses. With626groups that encountered from March to December,2010, we found blue sheep had different flight initiation distance among areas (F=0.88, P=0.45), also did in the final distance(F=98.02, P<0.01). In Dashuigou off-trail remained farthest from human, but had the nearest distance in two on-trail areas. Flight initiation distance did not vary among group size (F=2.27, P=0.08), either among seasons (F=0.88, P=0.45), but final distance did (season:F=3.76, P=0.01; group size:F=3.54, P=0.02).6、Majority of the blue sheep fled slowly when encountered with human in the two on-trail area, but majority fled fast in other three areas. Both the flight initiation distance and final distance had negative correlation with number of tourists, and had positive correlation with distance from anthropogenic disturbance. In the time with heavier anthropogenic disturbance (10:00-15:00h), there are similar encounter rates among5areas (F=0.57, P=0.69). Al and A2(with less anthropogenic disturbance) had lower density of blue sheep than other three areas (F=5.67, P=0.01), but had no difference between them (P>0.05). There had no variation in density among seasons (F=0.64, P=0.60). |
PDF Full Text Request