A preliminary study on home range and daily travel distance of François’ langur in a high-altitude area

Abstract

François’ langur (Trachypithecus francoisi) is an indicator species living in Karst rocky habitats. To understand the François’ langurs ecological adaptation to high-altitude habitat, we used the field tracking method to collect home-range data and daily travel distance of François’ langur at high-altitude (800–1400 m) areas of Kuankuoshui National Nature Reserve between April 2008 and March 2009. The results revealed the following: (1) according to the grid cell method, the home range of François’ langurs was estimated to be 50.7 ha. The area in the winter-spring season was larger than in the summer-autumn season (37.7 vs. 27.7 ha). According to the minimum convex polygon method by GIS, the home range of François’ langurs in the winter-spring season and the summer-autumn season was 123.5 and 68.8 ha, respectively. The whole-year home range of François’ was clearly larger than the grid cell method (140.4 vs. 50.7 ha). (2) The home range of François’ langurs had clear superposition. Langur's core areas were concentrated in three small areas, which only occupied 18.2% of the home range. (3) The langur had a short daily travel distance (230–1115 m) and significant seasonal differences. The summer-autumn season moving distances being obviously shorter than the winter-spring season (517 vs. 785 m). (4) With the decrease in the availability of food resource in winter-spring season, the home range and daily travel distance of François’ langurs significantly increased. (5) Living in the high altitudes, François' langurs tended to form a larger group (≥ 8 individuals), which is larger than other groups at lower altitude, had the larger home range, and had shorter daily travel distance. Our results indicate that colobines’ survival strategies tend to form a larger home range and shorter day-traveling distance to adapt to high-altitude and low-temperature habitat.