Spatial abundance of ungulates and role of predation on chital (Axis axis) demography and behaviour in Corbett Tiger Reserve, Uttarakhand, India.

Abstract

To address the first objective which was to estimate the abundance of ungulates in different habitats of CTR, I have used line transect-based distance sampling approach to estimate the density of four major ungulate species (chital, sambar deer, barking deer, and wild pig) of CTR in ~520 sq. km of the Corbett National Park (CNP) region. Density was estimated using 156 spatial transects replicated 1 to 4 times over four sampling years. Both year-wise and pooled (weighted average of four years) density estimates were highest for chital followed by sambar. Barking deer had the lowest density. Chital density has remained stable over the years. Post-stratifying the densities of the four ungulates by three major habitat types of CNP (grassland, saldominated, and mixed deciduous) exhibited the highest density of chital in the grassland and lowest in the sal-dominated forest. Sambar density on the other hand was highest in the mixed deciduous and lowest in the grassland. Barking deer also exhibited a similar trend of habitat-wise density. A significant part of my thesis was focused on the objective of evaluating the precision and cost-effectiveness of three different density estimation techniques. The diverse ungulate assemblage and complex terrain of CNP provided an excellent environment to conduct this experiment.