Time allocations of the group-living Tibetan eared pheasants Crossoptilon harmani with and without supplementary food were investigated by full-day sampling from winter through spring in an alpine scrub zone, south Ti...Time allocations of the group-living Tibetan eared pheasants Crossoptilon harmani with and without supplementary food were investigated by full-day sampling from winter through spring in an alpine scrub zone, south Tibet. At a flock scale, both the different food-supply flocks displayed similar daily patterns of activity, foraging in the morning and evening, and resting around midday. In terms of individual activity, either foraging or resting was highly synchronous with the flock＇s. Non-provisioned birds spent more time feeding and less resting in midwinter than in late autumn. In early spring as climates became warmer and day longer, however, non-provisioned birds did not decrease their feeding efforts significantly but the provisioned birds did. Across the non-breeding seasons, the provisioned birds （relying on nutrition-rich artificial food） devoted less time to feeding and more to resting than did the non-provisioned ones （relying on nutrition-poor plant roots）. Multivariate analysis showed increased food supply and ambient temperature resulted in a reduced foraging effort. However, the fact that the non-provisioned birds can save daily time for resting even in the cold short-day length mid-winter indicated that they faced no energetic constraint. Thus, protecting shelter vegetation rather than providing extra food is suggested to be important for long-term survival of the endangered galliform birds [ Current Zoology 55 （3） ： 193 - 199, 2009] .展开更多
Background: Restoring a viable population by reintroduction is the ultimate goal of a large number of ex situ conservation projects for endangered animals. However, many reintroductions fail to establish a population ...Background: Restoring a viable population by reintroduction is the ultimate goal of a large number of ex situ conservation projects for endangered animals. However, many reintroductions fail to establish a population in the wild, partly because released animals cannot acclimate to the native environment of the release site, resulting in very low survival rates. Acclimation training is a technique to resolve this problem, although it does not have positive results in all species. We tested whether acclimation training and soft-release could improve the reintroduction success for captive-bred Cabot's Tragopan(Tragopan caboti), an endangered pheasant in southern China.Methods: Reintroduction of captive-bred Cabot's Tragopan was carried out in the Taoyuandong National Nature Reserve, China from 2010 to 2011. We built a soft-release enclosure for acclimation training in the typical montane habitat of this pheasant. Nine birds were acclimated to the environment of this release site in this cage for more than 50 days before release("trained birds"), while 11 birds remained only in the cage for 3 days prior to release("untrained birds"). Released birds were tagged with a collar radio-transmitter.Results: Post-release monitoring revealed that the survival rate of trained birds was higher than that of untrained birds after 50 days(trained: 85.7%; untrained: 20.0%). Cox regression analysis showed that there was a significant difference in the mortality rates between the trained and untrained birds. In addition, a survey of the habitat of the experimental and the control groups showed significant differences in habitat selection between the groups.Conclusion: Our study suggests that pre-release acclimatization training is an important factor that can lead to improved survival and habitat selection of captive-bred reintroduced tragopans.展开更多
Welcome to Avian Research!This new journal is a continuation and enhancement of Chinese Birds,which has been and continues to be sponsored by the China Ornithological Society and Beijing Forestry University.In the fou...Welcome to Avian Research!This new journal is a continuation and enhancement of Chinese Birds,which has been and continues to be sponsored by the China Ornithological Society and Beijing Forestry University.In the four years since its inception,the original journal—the only one in China focusing on avian research—has published over 130 manuscripts,with authors from all continents across the world,garnering global respect in展开更多
We are pleased to share with readers that our journal Avian Research,jointly published by China Ornithological Society(COS)and Beijing Forestry University,has been included by the Journal Citation Report~?(JCR)of Thom...We are pleased to share with readers that our journal Avian Research,jointly published by China Ornithological Society(COS)and Beijing Forestry University,has been included by the Journal Citation Report~?(JCR)of Thomson Institute for Scientific Information(ISI)and received its first Impact Factor in the summer of 2016.Articles tracked by the Web of Science of the same com-展开更多
The Tree Sparrow(Passer montanus)is a dom-inant species in urban bird communities.With the devel-opment of urbanization,the habitats and sources of food for Tree Sparrows are decreasing.Can the urban Tree Sparrow adap...The Tree Sparrow(Passer montanus)is a dom-inant species in urban bird communities.With the devel-opment of urbanization,the habitats and sources of food for Tree Sparrows are decreasing.Can the urban Tree Sparrow adapt to changes in the urban environment?To answer this question,we studied the habitat use of Tree Sparrows in eight types of urban areas in Beijing.The results show that the number of both breeding and winter-ing Tree Sparrows decreased with increasing urbanization.The habitat use of Tree Sparrows,analyzed using stepwise discriminant analysis,was positively correlated with the number of brick bungalows,coniferous and broad-leaved trees and air conditioners.It was negatively correlated with the area of high buildings and hardened roads,pedestrian and automobile flux.This indicates that the Tree Sparrow had not adapted to rapid urbanization even though it is a generally adaptable species.Urban planning should take birds such as the Tree Sparrow into consideration.展开更多
基金support was provided by National Sciences Foundation of China(grants 30330050 and 30425036)
文摘Time allocations of the group-living Tibetan eared pheasants Crossoptilon harmani with and without supplementary food were investigated by full-day sampling from winter through spring in an alpine scrub zone, south Tibet. At a flock scale, both the different food-supply flocks displayed similar daily patterns of activity, foraging in the morning and evening, and resting around midday. In terms of individual activity, either foraging or resting was highly synchronous with the flock＇s. Non-provisioned birds spent more time feeding and less resting in midwinter than in late autumn. In early spring as climates became warmer and day longer, however, non-provisioned birds did not decrease their feeding efforts significantly but the provisioned birds did. Across the non-breeding seasons, the provisioned birds （relying on nutrition-rich artificial food） devoted less time to feeding and more to resting than did the non-provisioned ones （relying on nutrition-poor plant roots）. Multivariate analysis showed increased food supply and ambient temperature resulted in a reduced foraging effort. However, the fact that the non-provisioned birds can save daily time for resting even in the cold short-day length mid-winter indicated that they faced no energetic constraint. Thus, protecting shelter vegetation rather than providing extra food is suggested to be important for long-term survival of the endangered galliform birds [ Current Zoology 55 （3） ： 193 - 199, 2009] .
基金supported by the State Forestry Administration of China and the National Key Technology R&D Program of China(No.2016YFC0503200)
文摘Background: Restoring a viable population by reintroduction is the ultimate goal of a large number of ex situ conservation projects for endangered animals. However, many reintroductions fail to establish a population in the wild, partly because released animals cannot acclimate to the native environment of the release site, resulting in very low survival rates. Acclimation training is a technique to resolve this problem, although it does not have positive results in all species. We tested whether acclimation training and soft-release could improve the reintroduction success for captive-bred Cabot's Tragopan(Tragopan caboti), an endangered pheasant in southern China.Methods: Reintroduction of captive-bred Cabot's Tragopan was carried out in the Taoyuandong National Nature Reserve, China from 2010 to 2011. We built a soft-release enclosure for acclimation training in the typical montane habitat of this pheasant. Nine birds were acclimated to the environment of this release site in this cage for more than 50 days before release("trained birds"), while 11 birds remained only in the cage for 3 days prior to release("untrained birds"). Released birds were tagged with a collar radio-transmitter.Results: Post-release monitoring revealed that the survival rate of trained birds was higher than that of untrained birds after 50 days(trained: 85.7%; untrained: 20.0%). Cox regression analysis showed that there was a significant difference in the mortality rates between the trained and untrained birds. In addition, a survey of the habitat of the experimental and the control groups showed significant differences in habitat selection between the groups.Conclusion: Our study suggests that pre-release acclimatization training is an important factor that can lead to improved survival and habitat selection of captive-bred reintroduced tragopans.
文摘Welcome to Avian Research!This new journal is a continuation and enhancement of Chinese Birds,which has been and continues to be sponsored by the China Ornithological Society and Beijing Forestry University.In the four years since its inception,the original journal—the only one in China focusing on avian research—has published over 130 manuscripts,with authors from all continents across the world,garnering global respect in
文摘We are pleased to share with readers that our journal Avian Research,jointly published by China Ornithological Society(COS)and Beijing Forestry University,has been included by the Journal Citation Report~?(JCR)of Thomson Institute for Scientific Information(ISI)and received its first Impact Factor in the summer of 2016.Articles tracked by the Web of Science of the same com-
基金This study was supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China(Grant No.30170187)the Young Teacher Research Foundation of Central University for Nationality,China.
文摘The Tree Sparrow(Passer montanus)is a dom-inant species in urban bird communities.With the devel-opment of urbanization,the habitats and sources of food for Tree Sparrows are decreasing.Can the urban Tree Sparrow adapt to changes in the urban environment?To answer this question,we studied the habitat use of Tree Sparrows in eight types of urban areas in Beijing.The results show that the number of both breeding and winter-ing Tree Sparrows decreased with increasing urbanization.The habitat use of Tree Sparrows,analyzed using stepwise discriminant analysis,was positively correlated with the number of brick bungalows,coniferous and broad-leaved trees and air conditioners.It was negatively correlated with the area of high buildings and hardened roads,pedestrian and automobile flux.This indicates that the Tree Sparrow had not adapted to rapid urbanization even though it is a generally adaptable species.Urban planning should take birds such as the Tree Sparrow into consideration.
