Daytime Activity Budgets And Activity Rhythms By Blue Sheep(Pseudois Nayaur) With Different Sex Classes In Helan Mountain

Blue sheep(Pseudois nayaur) is classified into Pseudois, Bovidae, Artiodactyla. It is a typical alpine animals, which habitats at an altitude of2500-5500m altitude, alpine valleys bare rock or grass。Blue sheep is list as a Category Ⅱ Protected Wild Animal Species under the Wild Animal Protection Law in China. Helan Mountain is one of the most abundant resources area for blue sheep.We observed blue sheep from May2010to December2012. We use all occurrence recording and scan sampling methods to record the behavior of male and female blue sheep observations.As blue sheep were inactive during the night.We set three observation time according to different seasons. Spring and autumn are from08:00to18:00, summer are from08:00to17:00and winter are from08:00to19:00. And we analysis dayime activity budgets and daytime activity rhythms in four seasons of blue sheep,the results are as follows:1. In the yearly dayime activity budgets, the highest proportion is feeding,which reached47.15%,the second behavior was moving (29.60%), the third behavior was standing(10.82),resting and other behavior were less than others,the proportion were5.86%and6.56%.2. Sex factor have a certain effect on blue sheep in dayime activity budgets,feeding and other behavior were significantly difference (p<0.05),while there were no significantly difference in moving,standing and resting (p>0.05)3. In each type of behavior, the feeding behavior of male and female blue sheep are in the first row,the highest proportion of feeding behavior in male blue sheep were in summer (42.76%), the highest proportion of moving behavior were in winter (35.82%), the highest proportion of standing behavior were in winter (17.30%) the highest proportion of resting behavior were in spring (12.47%) and the highest proportion of other behavior were in summer(9.42%). While the highest proportion of feeding behavior in female blue sheep were in autumn(60.2%), the highest proportion of moving behavior were in winter(35.82%), the highest proportion of standing behavior were in winter (10.04%), the highest proportion of resting behavior were in summer(5.46%), and the highest proportion of other behavior were in summer(6.12%).4. Using Mann-Whitney U test of two independent samples,the male and female blue sheep reflect dramatic differences in feeding behavior(p<0.01).While they have no significant difference in moving behavior(p>0.05).The standing behavior in male and female,there is no significant difference (P>0.05) in spring and summer, nevertheless, there is a huge difference (P<0.01) in autumnl and winter.The resting behavior in male and female,there is a great difference (P<0.01) in spring and autumn, while is no significant difference (P>0.05) in summer and winter.Others behaviors,there is a significant difference (P<0.05) In contrast, during spring, summer and autumn, there is a very significant difference (P<0.01) in winter.5.There were two or three peaks in each season of blue sheep in feeding and moving activity rhythms,which present a feeding-resting-feeding activity regularity. Kruskal-Wallis H test results showed that:feeding behavior of male blue sheep and other behavior were no significant differences in different seasons (P>0.05),while threr were significantly difference in moving,standing and resting behavior in male blue sheep (P<0.05).There were significantly difference in feeding,moving,resting and other behavior of female blue sheep in different seasons,whereas no significant difference in standing behavior (P>0.05)...