Habitat selection change of Mrs. Hume Pheasant (Syrmaticus humiae) in Dazhongshan during the year

Abstract

Habitat selection of Mrs. Hume Pheasant (Syrmaticus humiae) was studied respectively in fall and winter, spring and summer in Dazhongshan in Yunnan Province by the methods of used and available plots. The results of test and Bonferroni confidence interval showed that the pheasant prefer to select broadleaf evergreen forest as habitat category throughout the year, although the dominant species of tree, shrub or herb in habitat differed in seasons. The tests of differences of the factors between used and available plots indicated that there was no obvious selection for the terrain factors in the whole year except the factor of distance to the water in summer. Among all the vegetation factors that the significant different ones were listed as canopy tree coverage in spring; canopy tree density, canopy tree coverage, leaf litter coverage and herb coverage in summer; canopy tree coverage, herb coverage and liana density in autumn and winter. The results of principal component analysis of the factors in used plots revealed that the factors with large loads in principal components differed in different seasons, in other words, the key factors of habitat selection differed with seasons. One-way ANOVA and stepwise discriminant analysis validated that the features of habitat were similar between spring and autumn and winter with comparison to summer.