The structure of the amur tiger (panthera tigris altaica) potential habitats and evaluation of its prey in the Taipingou national park (China) based on remote sensing data

Abstract

Today the population of the Amur tiger ( Panthera tigris altaica ) in the Russian Far East is being restored, young individuals are spread within the historical range, including the territory of China. Here the assessment of the territories suitability that exists at Northeastern China as the habitat of the Amur tiger and its food supply (three species of ungulates – wild boar, red deer and roe deer) are shown. Basically a specially protected area is chosen – the Taipingou National Park, located on the border of the Public Republic of China and Russia. The modeling of habitat suitability for ungulates was carried out on the basis of remote sensing data (Earth remote sensing) by using two different approaches – expert geo-information assessment of the territory and discriminant analysis modeling. The modeling of the suitability of ungulate habitats without the variability of plant communities based on discriminant analysis and showed a small difference between the model results for wild boar and roe deer. Nevertheless, the connection with the morphometric characteristics of the relief is more important for the wild boar than for the roe deer, and for the roe deer there is a variability of vegetation types more important. The results of the analysis that included the type of biotopes, showed that the wild boar prefers the central and northern parts of the Taipingou National Park, while the roe deer is the western part of the park; red deer is more common in the southern part of the park.