| The changes in the size of the home range are important parameters for estimating the minimum active area needed to assess the quality of the ecological environment to animal survival,to predict habitat load,and to protect the least viable population.It is significantly to protect and utilize animal reasonably and improve the quality of animal habitat.Budorcas taxicolorus,alias takin,is divided into Golden takin((B.t bedfordi),Sichuan takin(B.t.Tibetana),and Bhutan takin(B.whitei).Takin is a national Grade I key protected wild animal.Based on the GPS collar technology,this paper used Minimum Convex Polygon(MCP)and Kernel Density Estimates(KDE)to study the home range of the golden takin.From 2013 to 2015,we wore GPS collars on 11(7 females and 4 males)takins in the Foping National Nature Reserve.From 2013 to June 2017,we collected 76,936 effective GPS sites of 11 takins.We used the 100% MCP method to estimate home range.We used 2 different values of h(pi and lscv)to estimate 95%,75%,and 50% of the home range respectively.We studied the temporal differences and gender differences in the home range of the golden takin from three different timescales of the year,season and month.Our results show:(1)Area of 100% MCP home range was significantly larger than 95% KDE home range.The reason for this result might be that the limit site has a significant effect on the MCP home domain.(2)The results of KDE method showed that there was no significant difference between the males and females in the annual home range.There was significant difference in the seasonal home range of females.Area of spring home range of females was significantly greater than other three seasons.Attributable to changes in environmental conditions,this was an altitude migration period for takin.Takin would drop to lower-elevation range in the spring and move upwards to higher-elevation mountaintop in early summer.During the winter,takins live in sub-alpine mountain,where snow and cold temperatures would affect their activities.(3)The results of KDE method also showed that females had a larger area of seasonal home range than males.The reason for this result might be due to social behaviors related to social groups.Females wore GPS collars are due to larger herds than the males,so the home range of females would be larger than the males.(4)The area of the monthly home range in April,May and June was relatively larger.Especially,the area in June was the largest.Therefore,we speculated that golden takin migrated from spring feeding grounds to breeding grounds in April,May,and June.(5)In the winter,the home range overlap rate was highest in December-January,January-February and February-March,which is consistent with the less winter home range and lower activity intensity.Female takin had small home range area,and a high rate of overlap in July and August.The MCP home range of the male takin showed a larger area of the home range,and the overlap was higher in July and August.This difference between male and female might be due to breeding males looking for breeding female mating in different groups and increasing mating success rates.(6)There was no significant difference between the KDE(hpi)and KDE(hlscv)of area for annual,seasonal,and monthly home ranges.Our current h(lscv)and h(pi)are obtained by running the hpi.diag and hlscv.diag programs in R language through takin site.The results showed that these two values of h had little effect on the takin home range of KDE. |
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