The Winter Habitat Relationships Between Lynx And Prey In Heilongjiang Shuanghe Nature Reserve

To study the spatial distribution, habitat utilization of the lynx (Lynx lynx), roe deer (Capreolus pygargus) and mountain hare (Lepus timidus) and suitable habitat overlapping between the predator and two prey species,56 transects of about 4 km were set and investigated with snow footprint techniques in winters from 2012 to 2015 in Shuanghe National Nature Reserve, Heilongjiang Province.4 spatial scales, namely 200m,400m,800m and 1600m were tested by resource selection function model to determine the optimal spatial scale for predicting relationship between species distribution and geographic, biological and anthropogenic disturbance factors. It showed that the scale of 1600m was the best scale in predicting ability for the lynx and roe deer, whereas 800m for the mountain hare. Probability cutoff point was applied to distinguish suitable habitat form unsuitable habitat for the three species, and optimal model for each species was used to predict suitable habitat distribution in the entire nature reserve. In addition, the features of overlapping suitable habitats were investigated. The main results were as follows:1.110 snow footprints were recorded for the lynx,3966 times for the roe deer and 877 times for the mountain hare during the survey period. As calculated, the suitable habitat area for the lynx, roe deer and mountain hare were 234 km2,814 km2, and 369 km2 respectively, which accounted for 26.6%,92.5%and 41.9% corresponding of the whole nature reserve.The area of overlapping suitable habitats between the lynx and roe deer was 232 km2 and 152 km2 between the lynx and the mountain hare.2. The main factors deciding the habitat selection of the lynx were anthropogenic disturbance and topography, which showed lynx avoided the human settlements, major road and the ice river road, and preferred to select areas with steep slopes.3. No factors or variables were found to have significant impact on the distribution of roe deer, even though standard deviation of elevation, mean aspect and coniferous patch showed weak positive and standard deviation of aspect showed weak negative relationship with roe deer presence. And no evidence of preference or avoidance of any habitat type or anthropogenic disturbance was found for this species.4. Conifer bush, coniferous, river, season road, ice river road were detected to be the main factors affecting habitat selection of the mountain hare, which showed that the mountain hare avoided coniferous, season road and ice river road, and preferred areas near river and coniferous.5. The result of suitable habitat overlapping analysis showed anthropogenic disturbance was the most important factor limiting lynx distribution. Overlapping areas between the lynx and roe deer were sites with least human disturbance and far away from ice river road and human settlements, and overlapping areas between the lynx and mountain hare were apart from ice river road, human settlements and common road. Whereas, roe deer and mountain hare could coexist in areas with anthropogenic disturbance.6. We suggested that managers should strengthen their management of people getting in and out of the reserve, especially people entering the reserve from the ice river road and completely eradicate poaching and collecting and finally reach the objective of reducing the effect of anthropogenic disturbance on wildlife.