The Eastern Part Of Inner Mongolia, Dalai Lake Region Wolf (canis Lupus) Habitat Suitability Evaluation

Habitat suitability of the wolf (Canis lupus) was studied systematically in the prairie of eastern Inner Mongolia from April 2008 to June 2008 and October 2008 to January 2009. Based on the survey, the main results by Remote Sensing (RS), Global Position System (GPS), Geographic Information System (GIS) and multiple statistics were revealed as followings:1. Analysis of habitat suitability factors of the wolf:Eleven ecological factors(concealment level; snow depth; distance to water resource; habitat type; vegetation type; vegetation height; Distance to residential area; Distance to road; Distance to pasture; Distance to enclosure) were recorded in each of 20 mx20 m plots of 59 samples. The data thus collected were analyzed using Cluster Analysis and Principle Component Analysis. The results showed that the habitat of Canis lupus shared the following characteristics: no less than moderate levels of concealment, distance to water resource less than 100m, habitat type (wide field with high grass, dry reed pond, bend of a river), swamp vegetation mainly including the reed and the willow shrub, height of the vegetation greater than lm, food richness, distance to settlements greater than 1000m, distance to grass road less than 1000m, distance to pasture less than 500m. There were three main factors (vegetation height, vegetation type and concealment levels) and seven secondary factors (distance to fense, snow depth, distance to water resource, habitat type, distance to pasture, food richness, distance to settlements) affecting the habitat selection of the wolf in winter.2. Habitat Suitability Evaluation for Canis lupusWith the evaluation of the wolf habitat suitability, the habitats of the wolf were reclassified into three categories:suitability, moderate suitability and unsuitability. The result showed that the moderate suitability habitat had a largest area among the three categories of the habitat. The moderate suitability habitats, coving about 3948.80 square kilometers, which took about 50.74% of the study area, were located on the mountains northwest of the Dalai Lake and the central of the study area. The area of the suitability habitat and the unsuitability habitat were 666.17 square kilometers and 1168.39 square kilometers, which were took about 8.56% and 15.01% respectively. The suitability habitat were located on the northwest of the Dalai Lake and the core region of the nature reserve, while the unsuitability habitat were located on the northeast of the nature reserve and the desert which were lied in the south of the Dalai Lake and the north of the nature reserve. Their were 287 patches in the study area, including 139 patches of suitability habitat,118 patches of unsuitability habitat and 30 patches of moderate suitability habitat. These result showed that the wolf habitat were mosaic distribution.3. The Landscape Spatial Characteristics of the habitat for Canis lupusThe landscape spatial characteristics of the three categories of the wolf habitat were evaluated with the six landscape indexs including patch number, average patch area, patch density, and fractal dimensions index. The results showed that the suitability habitat had more patches, high patch density, high landscape shape index, small average patch area, and low fractal dimensions index, while the moderate habitat were opposite and the unsuitability habitat were intervenient of the suitability habitat and the moderate suitability habitat.Then the same landscape indexs were used to evaluate the landscape diversity of the wolf habitat in Dalai Lake Nature Reserve in Inner Mongolia. The results showed that there were 287 patches in the study area,20.15 square kilometers per patch and 0.05 patches per square kilometers. The landscape shape index was 14.44, while the fractal dimensions index was 1.0272 and the Shannon's diversity index was 0.83. All the results above indicated that the wolf habitats were not dominated by a few landscapes, but with a variety of habitat patches of different sizes to form a mosaic distribution.