Group size effect on vigilance and daytime activity budgets of the Equus kiang (Equidae Perissodactyla) in Arjinshan Natoonal Nature Reserve, Xinjiang, China

Title:

Group size effect on vigilance and daytime activity budgets of the Equus kiang (Equidae Perissodactyla) in Arjinshan Natoonal Nature Reserve, Xinjiang, China

Creator:

Xu, Feng, Ma, Ming, Yang, Weikang, Blank, David, Ding, Peng, and Zhang, Tong

Identifier:

https://cdk.lib.cas.cz/client/handle/uuid:f0ced5ea-4c8f-4bc1-ac4b-8e99a75d7ba1
uuid:f0ced5ea-4c8f-4bc1-ac4b-8e99a75d7ba1

Subject:

Tibetian wild ass, behaviour rhythm, group scan frequency, and group scan level

Type:

article, model:article, and TEXT

Description:

Vigilance is recognized as the response to potential predation threats. Many factors influence vigilance behaviour, and the effect of group size has had a great deal of attention in recent years. The group size effect hypothesis proposes that there is a negative relationship between group size and vigilance, which has been proven ture for many birds and mammal species. However this relationship has not been investigated for a number of other species including the the Equus kiang. The E. kiang is the largest wild ass in the world, and endemic to the Tibetan Plateau. Previous studies have reported its distribution and reproduction, but information about their behaviour especially their daytime activity budgets is still very limited. Also unknown is if the distinctive habitat of the Tibetan Plateau makes their behaviour different from other Equidae species. So in this paper, we discuss our behavioural observations of the daytime activity budgets and the group size effect on vigilance for the E. kiang population in the Arjinshan National Nature Reserve, Xinjiang, China. The results indicate that group size has a significant effect on the vigilance levels: with an increase in group size, both the group scan level decreased and group scan frequency increased. Our results also showed that E. kiang spent most of their time feeding (51.41 ± 2.74 %), followed by moving (22.49 ± 1.40 %), standing (19.62 ± 6.74 %), resting (18.41 ± 2.13 %), and other activities (8.64 ± 0.72 %). Their feeding behaviour showed three distinct activity peaks during the day: early morning (8:00-11:00), midday (14:30-15:30), and around sunset (18:00-19:30). During the peaks of activity, E. kiang spent most of their time feeding, and during the period of inactivity, E. kiang spent most of their time resting and standing. So the group size effect was supported for E. kiang by this study, and our results are consistent with research on other Equidae species.

Language:

English

Rights:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
policy:public

Source:

Folia zoologica | 2013 Volume:62 | Number:1

Harvested from:

CDK

Metadata only:

false