Seasonal patterns of density distribution of Ungulates in tropical
deciduous forest of central India
Abstract
1. Tropical deciduous forests show strong seasonal variations due to
temporal dynamics of precipitation and temperature and therefore,
resource availability for animals are also limited accordingly. Certain
harsh environment even pushes animals to seasonal movements towards
available resources. 2. We hypothesize that the density distribution of
four sympatric ungulate species is structured by habitat covariates but
more affected by seasonality. We then investigated density gradient of
these species between contrasting season and correlated with
environmental covariates. 3. We used distance-based density surface
modelling with survey effort of 518 km in winter and 356 km in summer
and with count data as a function of environmental variables in
generalised additive modelling framework. We extrapolated seasonal
abundance of each species and calculated coefficient of variation to
ensure precision for the entire study area. 4. We observed a clear
seasonal shift in the density distribution of all four species between
summer (more abundant in valley) and winter (evenly distributed),
significantly influenced by anthropogenic and topographic factors.
Solitary species were congregated in larger groups during summer while
group living species were in larger groups during winter. 5. Our study
provides a clear understanding of species-habitat relationship as a
function of seasonality in tropical forest and is useful in spatial
prioritization of the habitats for relevant management inputs.