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Effects of road on diurnal group pattern and vigilance behavior in goitered gazelle.

WANG Mu-yang1,2, JI Sheng-nan3, CHEN Chen1,2,4, XU Wen-xuan1,2, HAN Lei1,2,4, YANG Wei-kang1,2*   

  1. (1CAS Key Laboratory of Biogeography and Bioresources in Arid Land, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China; 2Mori Wildlife Monitoring and Experimentation Station, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Mori 831900, Xinjiang, China; 3 Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing 100012, China; 4University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China).
  • Online:2020-03-10 Published:2020-03-10

Abstract: Understanding the effects of road on behavior pattern of endangered ungulates and expounding their behavior response and adaptation mechanism to the road effects are important to making comprehensive measures and schemes for effective conservation of endangered species under the disturbance of road projects. From June to August in both 2015 and 2016, we investigated the effects of national highway G216 on the group patterns and vigilance behaviors of goitered gazelle (Gazella subgutturosa) in Kalamaili Mountain Nature Reserve. Our results showed that the disturbance from G216 forced goitered gazelles to increase their group size, and that goitered gazelles invested much more time in vigilance when they were closer to G216. A distance of 500 m to G216 may be a threshold on the group pattern and vigilance behavior. Similar to the predation risk, disturbance of G216 forced goitered gazelles to adjust their group size and vigilance level. In the future, researches on behavioral response and adaptation mechanism under road project disturbances should be conducted, the results of which would help produce management measures to reduce the negative impacts on the wildlife in this area.