Abstract：
Although the home range and habitat selection of animal species is among the fundamental pieces of biological information collected by research projects during recent decades, published information on the snow leopard (Panthera uncia) home range is limited. The Altai Mountains of central Asia contain some of the largest and most important remaining conservation landscapes for snow leopards globally, but there is a limited understanding of the species\' ecology in this region. First, we used the data from 5 snow leopards equipped with GPS collars at four study sites in the Altai Mountains of Mongolia to broadly characterize patterns of home range use between 2013 and 2019. The data was used to calculate home range size from a 10 month period using three different estimators: minimum convex polygons (MCP), kernel density distributions (KDE), and local convex hulls (LoCoH). Second, ten data sets from 8 individual snow leopards were combined to cover all 12 months of a year and to generate a general additive mixed model of seasonal home range use and seasonal resource use. We found 1) large variation in home ranges between sites during the monitoring period ranging minimally between 26.1 and 395.3km2 (MCP); 2) Local convex hull home ranges were smaller compared to home ranges based on minimum convex polygons and kernels and yielded more biologically appropriate home range estimates; 3) monthly home ranges of males were larger than females; 4) female monthly home ranges decreased in summer, while male monthly range use remained stable throughout the year; and, 5) while both sexes shared similar habitat preference in winter (steep south-western slopes at high elevation), our data suggest different habitat preferences between sexes in summer. Knowledge of the space use of threatened species is crucial for their conservation, and this is especially true for apex predators who often provide benefits for an entire ecosystem. Our study provides a preliminary understanding of the spatial ecology of this important species in an area of critical conservation concern.
摘要：
尽管动物物种的家园范围和栖息地选择是近几十年来研究项目收集的基本生物学信息之一，公布的雪豹(Pantherauncia)家庭范围有限。中亚的阿尔泰山脉包含了一些全球雪豹最大和最重要的保护景观，但对该地区物种生态的了解有限。首先,我们使用了来自蒙古阿尔泰山四个研究地点的5只配备GPS项圈的雪豹的数据，以广泛表征2013年至2019年间家庭范围使用的模式。该数据用于使用三个不同的估计器从10个月的时间计算家庭范围大小：最小凸多边形（MCP），核密度分布(KDE)，和局部凸壳（LoCoH）。第二,将来自8只雪豹的10个数据集组合在一起，以涵盖一年中的所有12个月，并生成季节性家庭范围使用和季节性资源使用的一般加法混合模型。我们发现1）在监测期间，站点之间的家庭范围差异很大，范围最小在26.1和395.3km2（MCP）之间；2）与基于最小凸多边形和内核的家庭范围相比，局部凸包家庭范围较小，并且产生了更生物学上合适的家庭范围估计；3）男性的每月家庭范围大于女性；4）女性的每月家庭范围在夏季减少，而男性每月使用范围全年保持稳定；和，5)虽然男女在冬季有相似的栖息地偏好(高海拔的西南陡坡)，我们的数据表明，夏季性别之间的栖息地偏好不同。了解受威胁物种的空间使用对保护它们至关重要，对于通常为整个生态系统带来好处的顶级捕食者来说尤其如此。我们的研究提供了对该重要物种在关键保护领域的空间生态学的初步了解。
