Behavior And Nest Selection Of White-Naped Crane In Incubateing Season In Qixing River Nature Reserve In Heilongjiang Province

Behavioral biology and nest habitat selection of White-naped Crane in incubating period were investigated in Qixing River Nature Reserve from April to June in2011and2012. Instantaneous and scanning Sampling and focus animal sampling were used to collect the data. The significant difference between different gender and stage were compared by the method of Kolmogorov-Smironov and One-way ANOVA. The most important influencing factors of nest habitat selection were found based on the principal component analysis.The results showed that:In incubating period, White-naped Crane had definitely diurnal rhythm. The breeding behavior and feeding behavior of White-naped Crane accounted for the largest proportion, the proportion of male and female is39.35%,37.19%,60.96%,21.84%respectively. In pre-incubation period, behaviors of walking and incubating excited significant differences (P<0.01), behaviors of feeding and egg-turning excited normal differences (P<0.05), but behaviors of resting, preening and alerting had no differences (P>0.05). In mid-incubation period, behaviors of feeding, incubating and egg-turning excited significant differences (P<0.01), but other behaviors had no differences (P>0.05). In late incubation period, behaviors of feeding and incubating excited significant differences (P<0.01), behaviors of preening and egg-turning excited normal differences (P<0.05), but behaviors of walking, resting and alerting had no differences (P>0.05).Nest habitat selection of White-naped Crane is single and nest preferred to be built on reed marshes. The most suitable habitat factors include:Vegetation height(84.8±5.73cm), Vegetationdensity(357.3±15.44/m2),Vegetationcoverage(24.6%±2.7%),Waterdepth(18.76±0.79cm), Distance to water (50.9±7.94cm), Square of water(92.0±6.40m2), Distance to burned field(2.28±0.23km), Square of burned field (3720±187.53m2), Distance to human disturbance (3.18±0.06km), Distance to surplus reeds cluster (18.4±1.71m), Square of surplus reeds cluster (543.0±34.18m2), surplus reeds cluster density (163.2±6.47m2), surplus reeds cluster height(175.1±3.33cm).