Population Viability Analysis Of Red Deer In Wandashan Forestry Area

We estimated the environment carrying capacity of red deer in Wandashan forestry area, Heilongjiang in the winter of 2005 and 2006, meanwhile, population viability analysis was conducted on this endangered species.Sampling method was taken to numerate the amount of forage and the nutrition of them was determined to calculate all food provision for red deer by the habitat. Raising experiment was conducted to measure the daily nutrient requirement of red deer in winter. Combining these data with vegetation, based on mass material, metabolism energy and Nitrogen we estimated the carrying capacity of Wandashan forestry area for red deer. The results indicated that this area can sustain 10792 red deer in winter estimated based on mass material, 10082 based on metabolism energy and 16564 based on Nitrogen. By determining the nutrient composition of forage taken by red deer, we found that the density of Nitrogen was much higher than the amount really needed, while metabolism was lower, which result in over taking Nitrogen when enough energy was met. Therefore we presume metabolism energy to be standardized variable to estimate carrying capacity for its limited amount. For the influence of snow and other climate impacts, there is certain difference between two years.The population parameters were determined by field research and the data already grasped, and the vortex model was used to predict the future dynamics of red deer population in Wandashan forestry area. The estimating years was 100 with iteration of 100. The research results revealed that the red deer population in Wandashan forestry area did no possess an optimistic future with the average extinct time of 55 years and probability of 100% when simulated as the real condition. However, the population can increase quickly and reach the carrying capacity level with out catastrophe and inbreeding, which indicated that the red deer population in Wandashan forestry area possessed great increase potential. To understand the importance of each population parameter, we made the sensitivity analysis. The results meant that poaching formed the primary factor causing the extinction trend of red deer population in 'Wandashan forestry area (p<0.01) for the population dynamics changed greatly with the fluctuation of hunting pressure. Other impacts of population dynamics contained mortality of female individuals(r<0.01), carrying capacity(r<0.01) and stochastic environment (r<0.01).Inbreeding and the mortality of male individuals affected population slightly (p>0.05). According to the research results, sustainable effective conservation and management policies should be established focusing on the factors influencing population dynamics. Prohibiting hunting and logging should be emphasized to guarantee the long-term survival of red leer population inWandashan forestry area.