![]() Received: OctoAccepted: DecemPublished: January 17, 2023Ĭopyright: © 2023 Rosenbaum et al. PLoS ONE 18(1):Įditor: Juan Manuel Pérez-García, Universidad Miguel Hernandez de Elche, SPAIN (2023) Seasonal space use and habitat selection of GPS collared snow leopards ( Panthera uncia) in the Mongolian Altai range. Our study provides a preliminary understanding of the spatial ecology of this important species in an area of critical conservation concern.Ĭitation: Rosenbaum B, Poyarkov AD, Munkhtsog B, Munkhtogtokh О, Hernandez-Blanco JA, Alexandrov DY, et al. 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. We found 1) large variation in home ranges between sites during the monitoring period ranging minimally between 26.1 and 395.3km 2 (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. 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. 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). ![]() 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 20. ![]() 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. 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.
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