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Research | Open Access

Habitat use and diel activity pattern of the Tibetan Snowcock (Tetraogallus tibetanus): a case study using camera traps for surveying high-elevation bird species

Gai Luo1, Chuangming Yang1,2, Huaming Zhou2, Michael Seitz1, Yongjie Wu1( ), Jianghong Ran1( )
Key Laboratory of Bio-Resources and Eco-Environment of Ministry of Education, College of Life Science, Sichuan University, No. 24 South Section 1, Yihuan Road, Chengdu 610065, China
The Administration of the Gongga Mountain National Nature Reserve, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Ganzi 626000, China
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Abstract

Background

Global climate change has had significant effects on animal distribution and population dynamics in mid-latitude alpine areas, but we know little about the basic ecology of high-altitude species due to the difficulties of conducting field research in the harsh climate and habitat present at high elevations. The Tibetan Snowcock (Tetraogallus tibetanus) is a little-known phasianid distributing in alpine areas at extremely high elevations in the mountains surrounding the Tibetan Plateau. Estimating the species occupancy rate and discussing the factors affecting its distribution based on infrared-triggered camera techniques would provide both a baseline to measure the influence of global warming and valuable information on its conservation and ecology.

Methods

We used infrared-triggered cameras to investigate the Tibetan Snowcock on the western slope of Mt. Gongga from June to November 2016. We used the R package "overlap" to visualize its activity pattern, and used an occupancy model to both examine its habitat use as well as to determine the most influential variables affecting its habitat use.

Results

Using 103 camera traps over 9213 camera-days, we recorded 428 instances of Tibetan Snowcock. The diel activity peaks of Tibetan Snowcock occurred during the periods of 8:00-10:00 am and 18:00-20:00 pm. The model estimate of occupancy for Tibetan Snowcock (0.830) was slightly higher than the na?ve site occupancy based on camera detections (0.663), indicating a wider use of habitat than the camera traps recorded. Elevation, slope, settlement density, road density, and EVI (enhanced vegetation index) were the most influential variables for its habitat use.

Conclusions

The Tibetan Snowcock is confirmed to be diurnal. This species prefers an environment with a high elevation, gentle slope, and low EVI, apparently facing a trade-off between predator risk, foraging efficiency, and food availability. When human impact was low, there was a positive correlation between the habitat use of the Tibetan Snowcock and both its road and settlement densities. Infrared cameras and proper survey design are valuable for investigating extreme alpine phasianids.

Keywords

Occupancy modelTibetan SnowcockHabitat preferenceActivity patternMt. Gongga

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Avian Research
Volume 10 Issue 1,
January 2019
Article number: 4
DOI: 10.1186/s40657-019-0144-y
Cite this article:
Luo G, Yang C, Zhou H, et al. Habitat use and diel activity pattern of the Tibetan Snowcock (Tetraogallus tibetanus): a case study using camera traps for surveying high-elevation bird species. Avian Research, 2019, 10(1): 4. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40657-019-0144-y

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Received: 22 August 2018
Accepted: 22 January 2019
Published: 04 February 2019
© The Author(s) 2019.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
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