Foraging and Bedding Site Selection by Asiatic Ibex (Capra sibirica) During Summer in Central Tianshan Mountains

The Asiatic ibex (Capra sibirica) is typically found in the mountains of central Asia, studies on the habitat selection of this animal are few at present. We investigated the bedding and foraging sites selection by line census in the GuRenGuoLeng areas of Central Tianshan Moutains during summer, and assess how environmental factors affect their habitat use. Our results showed that there is no significant difference between foraging and bedding sites of ibex in distance to human settlements, vegetation height in summer, while altitude, slope, distance to road, vegetation cover, distance to water resource, distance to livestock, distance to summit of mountain, distance to hidden objects, hiding cover level and number of plant species have very significant differences. Slope location has no significant difference and landscape types have no significant difference but slope direction show very significant difference. Compared with foraging sites, ibex’s bedding sites prefer a higher altitude, smaller slope, closer to water resource and summit of mountain, further distance to road and livestock, higher hiding cover level and lower vegetation cover, habitat in the upper bare rock cliff and sunny slope. Stepwise discriminant analysis showed a series of seven ecological factors play important role on distinguish the bedding and foraging sites, in accordance with the order of its contribution value: distance away from livestock, vegetation cover, hiding cover level, distance to summit of mountain, distance from the settlements, altitude, distance from the hidden objects.