Habitat Utilization And Activity Pattern Of Sambar Deer (Rusa Unicolor)in Wolong Natural Reserve

Habitat utilization reflects the law of wildlife utilization of natural resources in habitat,and the activity pattern reflects the comprehensive adaptability of animals to the changes of various environmental conditions around the day and night.Understanding the habitat use and activity pattern characteristics of wild animals is helpful to understand the status and survival status of animals in the ecosystem,which is the basis for species protection and habitat restoration.Sambar deer(Rusa Unicolor)belong to artiodactyla,subject of cervidae,is one species of the second grade national protected animals.Sambar deer is one of the large forest ungulate,which occupies an important niche in the ecosystem,but because sambar's activity mainly at night,and is vigilant,good running,resulting in its field investigation is more difficult,so the basic ecological research of sambar in China is less.We analyzed the spatial distribution,habitat selection,habitat suitability and activity pattern characteristics of sambar deer by monitoring them in Wolong national natural reserve to provide basic data for species conservation.The main results are as follows:(1)Sambar deer are mainly distributed in the southern and southeast regions of Wolong Natural Reserve.According to the frequency difference of sambar deer sites in different spaces,it is found that the spatial utilization intensity of sambar deer is the strongest,strong,medium and weak,and the total area of different areas is the strongest:33 km~2;strong:339 km~2;medium:66 km~2;weak:102 km~2.The road passes through the middle and intensity area of the main activity area of the sambar deer.In the further analysis of the relationship between the occurrence frequency of sambar and the road distance,it is shown that the highest frequency of the sambar is the area away from the road 1-4 km,and the occurrence rate of sambar decreases with the increase of the distance from the area outside the road 4 km.(2)Through the analysis of 27 variables in the habitat and the non-use habitat of the sambar,the results showed that:there was a significant difference in the 10 habitat factors,include the distance to footpath,canopy density,crown diameter of tree,shrub coverage,shrub density,density of the young bamboo,height of the young bamboo,Numbers of mature bamboo and height of the bamboo,density of death bamboo.the sambar deer preference is selected on the gentle slope(0-10 degrees),the middle slope position,the distance between the paths is 100-500 m,the distance of the water source is less than 100 or the range of 200-300 m,the canopy density is more than 0.5,the coverage of the bamboo forest is in the range of 0.25-0.75,and the habitat of the shrub cover degree in the range of 0-0.25 is completely not selected,The selected vegetation types are the evergreen deciduous broad-leaved forest,the deciduous broad-leaved forest and the coniferous and coniferous forest.(3)The results of the evaluation of the suitability of the sambar deer's habitat with the MaxEnt model show that the suitable habitat of the sambar in the Wolong Natural Reserve is mainly distributed in the southeast of the protected area.The optimun habitat area is 672 km2,the suitable habitat area is 495 km2,and the unsuitable habitat area is857 km~2.The altitude,the road and the vegetation are the most important factors that affect the habitat of the sambar deer.Elevation,road,slope are the most important factors affecting the suitability of the sambar deer habitat.The sambar deer suitable habitat is mainly in the area of low altitude(<3500 m),near the road(<4000 m),gentle slope(<30°).(4)Based on the monitoring condition of infrared camera,we analyzed the daily activity law of sambar deer in non-salt well area.The results showed that the activity peak time of sambar was 17:00,and there was a lowest activity at 22:00;the peak of foraging activity was 17:00,the peak of movement was 17:00,and the other behaviors had two activity peak times of 14:00-15:00 and 17:00.We monitored salt-licking activity of sambar deer in Wolong Nature Reserve by using the remote video surveillance system.The results show that:for sambar deer,the salt-licking frequency is the highest in autumn and the lowest in winter.The salt-licking activity of sambar mainly happen at nighttime.Sambar deer arrive at salt well earliest during autumn(18:00),and latest during spring and summer(20:00).The frequency of salt-licking is different among different genders,females have the highest frequency of salt licking in autumn,while males have similarly high frequency in spring,summer and autumn.Adults have the highest frequency of salt-licking in autumn,while the licking frequency of subadults(fawn)decreases from spring to winter.The peak time of salt-licking among subadults(fawn)is earlier than that among adults.