Influence of population density on group sizes in goitered gazelle (Gazella subgutturosa Guld., 1780)

Abstract

We conducted our study in Ili depression, south-eastern Kazakhstan during 1981–1989 to investigate how group sizes and group class frequencies change with increasing population densities in goitered gazelles. In addition, we compared our study to data on group size and group class frequency of various goitered gazelle populations in Kazakhstan with very variable population densities. We found that mean group size was a more variable index than group class frequency. Population density had some effect on mean group sizes, but the strength of the influence was quite weak, and only in cases where densities of two populations varied more than sevenfold did group sizes start to change. Group class frequency was not correlated with population density at all. The impact of the yearly breeding cycle on group size was bigger than population density. The density-dependent response of goitered gazelle population was curvilinear in fashion, and it may be classified as intermediate between social-dwelling ungulate species, living in large groups and demonstrating continuous (linear) increases of group size with population density and those that are solitary or territorial ungulate species with no relationship between population size and group size, though the goitered gazelle population’s weak response was distinctively closer to the one of solitary ungulate species.