The Feeding Habitat Preference And Potential Suitable Habitat Of Black Woodpeckers

Black woodpecker (Dryocopus martius) is a large woodpecker. It has been seen as indicator species to forest biodiversity. A variety of birds will use its nest holes to nest or reproduction. This study has two questions to resolve. We need to investigate the feeding habitat preference of Wood Pecker and explain the phenomenon of population increasing in recent years in Liangshui national nature reserve. Line transect method and quadrat method were used to investigate the feeding habitat preference from March,2015 to November.Line transects were uniformly distributed in the nature reserve and had covered all habitat types including spruce-fir forest, Korean pine forest, larch forest and so on. We selected some areas where have been foraged by Black Woodpecker to set a 20m×20m quadrat. If we didn’t see the Black woodpecker’s trace, we will set a quadrat interval of 100m. Data of feeding habitat preference was measured in the samples.Under the support of GIS technology, we use the vector map of nature reserve and DEM data to make overlay analysis. We used AHP to determine each factor’s weight.In order to get the landscape feeding habitat features of Black Woodpecker, further analysis of multifactor comprehensive evaluation map have been done. We use the software of Fragstats 4.2 to calculate the landscape index.Our results were listed as below:1. Food factor, terrain factor and water factor are the main factors affecting Black Woodpecker’s selection of feeding habitat. Black Woodpecker forage food main in Picea asperata and Abies fabric that have dead. Decayed pests are the main food source. Black Woodpecker prefer foraging in somewhere having canopy gaps and prefer the trees of having big diameter. Terrain factors are the important factors that affect feeding habitat selection of Black Woodpecker. Black Woodpecker would select some areas to forage where altitude less than 400m and the slope direction is half sunny slope. Water is also very important. Black Woodpecker would forage in somewhere has a high humidity.2. Food factor is leading role in all factors. The suitable feeding area of Black Woodpecker is 1726ha, accounting for a total area of 17%. These areas main distribute in spruce-fir forest of low altitude and beside the river. The unsuitable feeding area of Black Woodpecker is 3197ha, accounting for a total area of 50%. These areas main distribute in surrounding regions of high altitude and far from the river.3. In patch level, Black Woodpecker prefers to select the patch which area is bigger and shape is regular. In landscape level, Black Woodpecker prefers to select the patch which distribution is collection code. In other word, Black Woodpecker don’t like fragmentized habitat. So we judge that Black Woodpeckers belong to interior species in Liangshui national nature reserve.