Terrestrial Bird And Mammal Diversity And Occupancy Modelling Of Cengwanglaoshan National Nature Reserve,Guangxi

Cameral trap is increasingly and widely used in wildlife monitoring in recent years.Cameral trap is advantageous in the modelling of site occupancy wildlife,and is used for indirectly density estimate.In order to further study diversity,distribution and site occupancy of terrestrial birds and mammals in Cenwanglaoshan National Natural Reserve(CNR hereafter for brief),we used 60 infrared camera traps from January to October 2019 in the three sites,Yanzitou,Anjiaping,and Dalongping in CNR.The three sites each had 20 camera traps.Based on the data from these camera traps,we modeled the site occupancy of the several relative abundant animals.The main results are as the followings:(1)The total vertebrate species detected was 49,including 21 mammals species,28 birds species.Among the detected species,hume's Pheasant(Syrmaticus humiae)was listed as Class I State Key Protected Animal,and silver pheasant(Lophura nycthemera),red junglefowl(Gallus gallus)?collared scops owl(Otus bakkamoena),spotted linsang(Prionodon pardicolor)were listed as Class II State Key Protected Animal?The top five mammal species in terms of relative abundance index(RAI)were as followings: Edward's leopoldamys(Leopoldamys edwardsi,RAI = 16.7%),Asian red-cheeked squirrel(Dremomys rufigenis,RAI = 2.4%),Pallas' s squirrel(Callosciurus erythraeus,RAI = 2.2%),Chinese ferret badger(Melogale moschata,RAI = 1.6%),and masked palm civet(Paguma larvata,RAI = 1.1%).The top five mammal species in terms of RAI were as the followings,silver pheasant(RAI = 65.4%),red-billed leiothrix(Leiothrix lutea,RAI = 9.3%),grey-bellied tesia(Tesia cyaniventer,RAI = 7.5%),golden mountain thrush(Zoothera dauma,RAI = 4.3%),and rufous-necked scimitar babbler(Pomatorhinus ruficollis,RAI = 2.7%).(2)Detection probabilities among the three site were roughly similar ? The total detection probability,mammal detection probability,and bird detection probability of the Anjiaping were 18.35%,12.62%,5.73%,respectively,and that of Yanzitou were 16.10%,12.50%,and 3.60%,respectively,Dalongping were 14.57%,10.30%,and 4.27%.According to the independent photographs described by O'Brien et al,Edward's leopoldamys was the most abundant among mammas,and silver pheasant was the most abundant birds in all the sites,suggesting that the two species were widely distributed in the CNR.(3)Biodiversity index indicated by Shannon-Wiener index varied among sites,Yanzitou had largest index of 4.698,following by Dalongping 3.934.Whilst,Dalongping had the largest index of 2.162,and Anjiaping had the lowest value of 1.920 if only mammas were considered.Further,Yanzitou had the largest index of 2.598,and Dalongping had the lowest one of 1.772 if only birds were concerned.These results implied that Dalongping was the most important distribution area for mammals,while Anjiaping was the most important distribution area for birds.This difference may be the resultant of habitat quality,human disturbance,food resources,etc.(4)Mann-Whitney U test showed that the paired comparison of Anjiaping,Yanzitou,and Dalongping had no significant variation in independent photographs,total species number,bird species number,as well as mammal species number(p > 0.05).Species similarity indicated by Jaccard index showed that paired comparison of the three sites were highly similar.The similarity index ranged from 0.58(Anjiaping Vs Yanziyou)to 0.61(Anjiaping Vs Dalongping).The sites were all included in the same nature reserve,it is reasonable that there were not significant variation between sites.(5)Occupancy modeling of the seven most abundant species based on independent photographs showed that five specie had actual occupancy rate ? lager than 0.5,including silver pheasant(? = 0.8333),pallas' s squirrel(? = 0.5833),Asian red-cheeked squirrel(? = 0.6042),Edward's leopoldamys(Leopoldamys edwardsi ? = 0.875),as well as red-billed leiothrix(? = 0.5417).These results implied that among 10 randomly selected site,averagely five sites were occupied by the mentioned five species.The detection probabilities ? of the selected species were less than 0.5.Five specie whose actual occupancy rate ? were similar to estimated occupancy rate ? from the modelling,the difference between the two occupancy rates were less than 0.1.These species were silver pheasant,Asian red-cheeked squirrel,Edward's leopoldamys,ferret badger,as well as redbilled leiothrix.(6)Covariates reflected the extend of site occupancy for a given species.According to covariate analysis,altitude significantly influence the site occupancy of silver pheasant and red-billed leiothrix,and weakly influence the site occupancy of other species.To the most,altitude had no influence on site occupancy of Edward's leopoldamys,indicating that due to the wide distribution pattern,altitude exert limited effect on the species.For silver pheasant,the distance from water resource had influence on its site occupancy.It was postulated that it water availability influence the habitat use of the species.Habitat as one of the covariates exerted no influence on the site occupancy of the species,indicating that landscape similarity among the three sites all affect little on habitat use.