The Effect Of Artificial Plantation On Home Range Of Reeves’s Pheasants (Syrmaticusreevesii)

Reeves’s pheasant (Syrmaticus reevesii) is a threatened species endemic to China, and is now classified as a nationally second-level protected species in China and a vulnerable species by the IUCN’s Red List. This species was relatively common in central China. Many investigations had been conducted in nature reserves, whereas little is known about the population status in areas outside these reserves, especially in artificial plantation landscape. Therefore, we surveyed the population using line transects and examined home range of this pheasant using radio-telemetry on three different Forest. Home range was estimated based on95%fixed kernel and60%fixed kernel estimation using Animal Movement software.The relative population density in Dongzhai National Nature Reserve, Xianjuding Forestry Farm and Pingjinguan was10.96ind./km2,6.07ind./km2and33.36ind./km2.The results showed that the size of the home ranges and core areas of the male pheasants in the Dongzhai National Nature Reserve in Henan Province were smaller than those we assessed in Xianjuding Forest Farm and Pingjingguan Agricultural Forest Farm (P<0.05).The average home range size of female Reeves’s Pheasants in the Dongzhai Nature Reserve was larger than male (F,,5=8.846, P=0.041).We observed high overlap in a given pheasant’s home range among different areas (80%). The overlap of♂♂was the highest (44.29%) and the lowest one was♀♀.Mann-Whitney U test showed that♂♂’s overlap in Xianjuding Forest Farm was significantly larger than Dongzhai Nature Reserve (Z=-2.309,df=14, P=0.021) and Pingjingguan Agricultural Forest Farm (Z=-2.984, df=20, P=0.002).According to the results above, it was reasonable to assume that Reeves’s pheasant could use artificial plantation, and artificial plantation should be the preferred habitat for this species. In order to promote the conservation of this species in artificial plantation, we recommended to attach importance to the habitat conservation in non-protected areas, and conduct artificial habitat restoration in degraded area. In particular, it was more important to reduce human disturbance and carry out long-term monitoring program.