A Pilot Study on Home Range and Habitat Use of Chinese Goral (Naemorhedus Griseus): Exploring GPS Tracking Data in Cliff Landscape by Three Estimation Methods

yang teng Beijing Forestry University College of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology Shupei TANG Sichuan Academy of Environment Policy Policy and Planning lai heda meng Northeast Forestry University College of Wildlife and Protected Area Liji Wu Inner Mongolia Saihanwula National Nature Reserve Administration Zhiqing HAN Inner Mongolia Saihanwula National Nature Reserve Administration Yingying HAN Beijing Forestry University College of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology Weidong BAO (  wdbao@bjfu.edu.cn ) Beijing Forestry University https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5616-7307


Introduction
Home range is de ned as the area traversed by an individual during its normal activities of feeding, mating and caring for its offspring (Burt 1943). It provides a variety of necessary natural resources and conditions for wild animals (Gareshelis 2000), studies on animal home range variation can shed lights on the distribution and utilization of resources, and habitat selection in time and space, hence contributing to better understanding about animal behavior and ecology (Pebsworth et al. 2012;Noonan et al. 2018).
Previous studies had shown that ecological factors such as the condition of the animal itself, food in the habitat, topography and shelter conditions can all affect the size of the home range (Bowers et al 1996; Guarino 2002). The characteristics of home range, such as spatial distribution, shape and home range overlap, have their speci c formation causes and potential biological signi cance. Meanwhile, home range size is an important parameter for estimating the minimum active area needed to predict the habitat carrying capacity (Baber 2003) that is valuable in managing the minimum viable populations (Kang and Paek 2005) and developing effective conservation strategies (Macdonald 2016; Wilson et al. 2018).
The basis of home range analysis is the collection of activity sites of the studied animals. GPS tracking provides convenience for site location and consequently has obvious advantages over other data collection methods in animal spatial behavior study (Walter et al. 2015). The most important advantage of GPS tracking seems to be the continuous recording of locations during study period, and providing large number of accurate locations that may be obtainable without interfering the normal life of animals that is being tracked (Pebsworth et  Halbrook and Petach 2018), and no standardized method for home range analysis exists (Signer and Balkenhol 2015). Minimum convex polygon (MCP) is a simple and most widely used method in home range estimation, but it is sensitive to outlier locations and the number of xes, and poor t to data if the shape of the home range is non-convex. Moreover, MCP is not capable of providing data concerning density distribution (Laver and Kelly 2008;Nilsen et al. 2008  The Chinese goral population in Saihanwula National Nature Reserve of Inner Mongolia lived in a limited cliff landscape which was isolated from the populations in central China ). In addition, a study found that this goral population maintained a moderate genetic diversity and diverged with its southern conspeci cs in Beijing region (Yang et al. 2019). Therefore, revealing the goral's adaptation strategy to limited space resources, and clarifying the overlapping use and segmentation behavior of home range and microhabitat spaces are of great signi cance to effectively protect and improve the quality of animal habitats. This study aimed to detect home range variations of the gorals by GPS tracking and select a better data analysis method in the rugged terrain environment which would be helpful for the conservation of this isolated population.

Capture and collaring of gorals
The tracking period lasted from February 2015 to September 2018. The gorals were captured using salt baited falling traps with safety protection net in the midway of the trap, after capturing the animals were aged by tooth eruption and weights (Table 1). . We tracked four goral (CG01, CG02, CG03 and CG04) for over two years, the extent of 95% and 50% annual home ranges, and the 95% isopleth seasonal home ranges were estimated by the three methods. Thus, there were six (one home range with three different estimators by 95% and 50% contours) to twelve (two annual home ranges with six different estimators) different cases of annual home ranges for each individual goral (n = 4). Overall, we computed 48 annual home range sizes and 138 seasonal home range sizes. In addition, we estimated the extent of monthly home range sizes by 95% MCP, so there were 145 monthly home range sizes with ve goral being calculated.
Home range sizes were log-transformed to meet the assumptions of normality. We used analysis of threeway ANOVA to compare the inter-individual differences and annual home range estimations from different methods at 95% and 50% contour variances, and seasonal and monthly differences in home range sizes. The data of altitudes were not normally distributed, nor were the variances homogeneous, so non-parametric analyzes of Kruskal-Wallis and Wilcoxon rank sum tests were used to compare differences in seasonal habitat use in altitude variations. All data were expressed as mean ± standard deviation, and α = 0.05 as signi cant for statistical tests.

Monthly home range variation
As to the monthly home ranges of the Chinese gorals by MCP 95%, no signi cant difference was found between the tracked animals (n = 5) (F = 0.451, dƒ = 11, P = 0.93). The smallest home range was observed in February (0.054 ± 0.032km 2 ), while larger home ranges were observed from August to December. Five goral increased their home range sizes from February to April, however, the home ranges dramatically decreased during the period ranging from May, June through July (Fig. 3).
Use of habitats at different altitudes . No signi cant differences were found between summer and autumn (P = 1), summer and winter (P = 0.6), or autumn and winter (P = 1), but signi cant differences existed between spring and summer (P < 0.01), spring and autumn (P < 0.01), as well as between spring and winter (P < 0.001). Thus, four gorals tended to move to higher altitudes during the spring, particularly in May. In winter, the gorals tended to perch on loweraltitude habitats, particularly during January when the weather was the coldest.

Spatial behavior of Chinese goral
In spite of the relatively small sample used for this study, it marked the rst attempt to make a comprehensive analysis on the annual, seasonal and monthly home range size and altitude use of the Chinses goral with GPS collars, which contributes to providing us a better understanding about the spatial behavior for this endangered species. The annual home range sizes had considerable interindividual variation and the average home ranges varied by 8. signi cant differences were found in the seasonal home range variations of the Chinese goral in this study. In our study area, the forage quality and appropriate temperature changed progressively and attracted gorals to higher altitudes gradually where fresh vegetation grows timely during the spring season, which might explain the expansion to the highest altitudes and the largest home range sizes in spring. During winter times, vegetation at higher altitude becomes unavailable due to seasonal senescence and snowfalls, forcing the gorals to move downwards to comparatively favorable places at lower altitudes where vegetation can be found. There might be a trade-off between foraging and energy conserving, which explains why the second largest home range sizes occurred and the lowest use of altitudes in winter. Notably, the smallest monthly home range occurred in February in this study, when the forage resources were the scarcest in winter months. As a response to scarce resources, the Chinese goral may conserve energy by moving around less so as to compensate for the reduced food intake, which is similar to other ungulates living in mountainous environment (Luccarini et al. 2006;Yan et al. 2017). On the contrary, during summer and autumn when food resources are more stable at both higher and lower altitudes, the home range size decreased accordingly. Some researchers reported that females' home range decreased dramatically due to cub birthing (Carvalho et al. 2008;Cho et al. 2016). Our results partially supported claims that the home range decrease in females could be explained by the breeding and birth cycles, as mature female gorals showed a decrease in home range size during the period ranging from May, through July that corresponded to the birth of cubs. This was similar to long-tailed goral (N. caudatus) in their home range variations (Cho et al. 2016). On the other hands, we found that the four female gorals maintained relatively stable home ranges and showed obvious spatial overlaps, such as between CG01 and CG03, CG02 and CG04 (Fig. 1). Although we didn't know the detailed kinship relations among these goral, the small study area may force genetically related individuals to share suitable habitats (Yang et al. 2019), which may contribute to conservation policy planning and management of this endangered species.
Due to the complexity and diversity of home range estimation methods, and the fact that there is no standardized method evaluation (Fieberg and Börger 2012;Signer and Balkenhol 2015), it is necessary to carefully match speci c objectives with appropriate methods in analyzing home range sizes (Halbrook and Petach 2018). Previous studies con rmed that LoCoH was more preferable compared with MCP and KDE, as this model produced lower statistical error rates and could more realistically describe home range size (Getz et al. 2007

Conclusions
In conclusion, our study on the annual, seasonal, and monthly home range variations by three estimation methods, as well as the seasonal and monthly habitat altitude changes is critically important to better understanding of habitats needed by Chinese goral and can be used as fundamental data for the conservation and habitat management of this endangered species.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to extend our gratitude to all the staff in the Inner Mongolia Saihanwula National Nature Reserve Administration for their valuable supports in helping us capturing and collaring the animals as well as in maintaining the habitats.

CONTRIBUTIONS
Yang Teng and Shupei Tang analyzed the data and scripted the original manuscript. Menghedalai, Zhiqing Han, and Wuliji helped in data collection, capturing and collaring the animals. Yingying Han and Weidong Bao designed the study and revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the nal version of the manuscript.
Ethics approval and consent to participate Not applicable.

Competing interests
Authors declare that they have no con ict of interests in this study.

Availability of data and materials
We do not want to open up our data.

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