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30 March 2018, Volume 38 Issue 2

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Personality and its differences among adult free-ranging Tibetan macaques (Macaca thibetana) at Mt. Huangshan, China

CHEN Rui，GU Zhiyuan，WANG Xi，SUN Binghua，XIA Dongpo，LI Jinhua

2018, 38(2):  117-127.  DOI: 10.16829/j.slxb.150101

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Personality is the adaptive result of animals’ habitat and their society. Studies on animal personality are important to untangle complex social relationship. Naturalistic  observation is an ideal method to distinguish wild animal personality and can better highlight the natural attributes and personality trait types in wild animals than can  personality traits rating and behavior coding. The study subjects are a free-ranging group of wild Tibetan macaque (Macaca thibetana) at Mt.Huangshan, Anhui. The study used  focal animal sampling and all occurrence recording methods to collect adult macaques’ natural behaviors from July 2015 to June 2016. We then used principal components analysis to distinguish personality traits and gender differences among adult monkeys. Results showed that there were five types of personality such as leadership, introversion, sociability, solitary and bullying among adult male macaques. Adult female macaques had six types of personality: leadership, solitary, introversion, insecurity, nervousness and affiliation. The results are consistent with previous research and indicate that the naturalistic observation is a better choice for analyzing personality types in wild animals. The study provides scientific basis for further understanding diversity and adaptability at the individual level.

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Re-introduced Przewalski’s horses’s breeding success and population viability analysis in Anxi National Nature Reserve

PEI Pengzu, WANG Liang, SHAO Yaping, SHI Cunhai, YANG Yongwei, BAO Xinkang

2018, 38(2):  128-138.  DOI: 10.16829/j.slxb.150117

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The Przewalski’s horse (Equus przewalskii) population re-introduced in the Anxi Extra-arid Desert National Nature Reserve in northwest China is a relatively isolated populationwith an extremely low growth rate. In addition, they are facing severe predation pressure as well as inbreeding recession. Hence, to develop a long-term protection strategy is of high urgency. In this study, the reproduction and population viability of reintroduced Przewalski’s horse have been analyzed. The results showed that, (1) the low population growth of reintroduced Przewalski’s horse was caused by both low fertility rate (44.3%) and high foals mortality rate (43.4%). Low reproductive survival rate is mainly influenced by natural enemies' predation and diseases. The Przewalski’s horses exhibited seasonal breeding, 80.9% of foals were born in May and June; (2)We used the Population Viability Analysis modelVORTEX in this case and predicted that the extinction risk of this population is 60% after 100 years. Aminimum population of 200 is required to guarantee a risk less than 10%; (3)The sensitivity analysis showed that wolf attacks have the greatest influence on the extinction risk and final population size, followed by intrinsic factors such as maximum breeding age and fecundity rate; (4) This Przewalski’s Horse population was trapped in a small population effect. The mortality caused by  diseases and foal weakness was relatively high (26.5% and 8.82%, respectively). Hence, it is necessary to supplement the population with new individuals to prevent extinction. Some additional strategies, like mitigating wolves’ predation pressure and strengthening foals’s security, can also effectively improve the Przewalski’s horse living condition.

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#br# The time budgets of male Capra sibirica of different ages in rutting season

HAN Lei, WANG Muyang, YANG Weikang, ZHU Xinsheng

2018, 38(2):  139-147.  DOI: 10.16829/j.slxb.150098

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Research has shown that multiple reproductive-age ruminant males reduce their forage intake substantially during the rut. Two hypotheses have been proposed to explain this rut-induced hypophagia phenomenon: the foraging-constraint hypothesis and energy-saving hypothesis. We compared the time budgets of different age-classes of male Siberian ibex Capra sibirica among different rutting stages to make clear what tactic was used by Siberian ibex. Focal animal sampling was used to collect behavior data from October to December in 2014, in the middle of Tianshan Mountains. We used Kruskal-Wallis tests and Spearman rank correlation tests to analyze behavior data. Our results show that the feeding time of both adult males and sub-adult males during the rut were substantially lower than that during the pre- and post-rut. However, the time spent lying was similar among different stages of the rut for both the adult and sub-adult males. The ratio of feeding time to lying time in the rut was also significantly decreased compared with pre-rut, and there is no differences were found with post-rut. The duration of rutting-related behaviors during the rut were considerably higher than the during pre- and post-rut, most of non-rut time was allocated to foraging for all males. The feeding time of females during the rut was lower than pre- and post-rut, the lying time during rut and post-rut were observably higher than during pre-rut. Our results show that the Siberian ibex males of different age-classes decrease their feeding time during rut. This rut-induced hypophagia could be mostly explained by the foraging-constraint hypothesis; while the energy-saving hypothesis could also contribute to the reduction of feeding time for Siberian ibex males in this season.

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Impact of plateau pikas（Ochotona curzoniae）on Elymus nutans and legume plant physiological properties in alpine meadow

XU Hualei, YAN Hongyu, DENG Teng, ZHANG Rui, LIU Wei

2018, 38(2):  148-157.  DOI: 10.16829/j.slxb.150099

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Activities of plateau pikas（Ochotona curzoniae）affect physiological properties of different plant in alpine meadow communities by foraging. A controled experiment was conducted to determine the effects of disturbance by plateau pikas on physiological properties of legume and Elymus nutans from 2010 to 2012 in Guoluo, Qinghai province. The results showed that（1）There were no significance differences among the treatments in May and June: the aboveground biomass, plant height, tillers number, tillers length, canopy coverage all decreased, but the lengths and the number of Elymus nutans leafs all increased initially, and then decreased with increased disturbance levels by plateau pika foraging in July and August.（2）The increasing range of plants which were preferred by plateau pikas in control（CK）was significantly higher than that in high density areas（HD）(P<0.05). Plateau pika foraging intensity showed a negative correlation during legume late growth stage. The foraging intensity in the low or medium densities is favorable to Elymus nutans leaf growth, but greater feeding intensity is unfavorable to its growth.（ii）Higher plateau pika foraging intensity has obvious inhibitory effects on the increasing range of plants which were preferred by plateau pikas.

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Effects of cold acclimation on the structure of small intestinal mucosa and mucosal immunity-associated cells in Lasiopodomys brandtii

BO Tingbei, ZHANG Xueying, WANG Dehua

2018, 38(2):  158-165.  DOI: 10.16829/j.slxb.150154

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Changes in environmental temperature affect the morphology and function of digestive tract in wild rodents. The small intestine is the main absorptive organ for nutrients, and its structure and function are plastic. To understand the response mechanisms of the structure and function of small intestinal mucosa to environmental temperature, we investigated the effects of cold acclimation on small intestinal mucosal structure and mucosal immunity-associated cells in Brandt's voles (Lasiopodomys brandtii). We found that: 1) The villus length and the ratio of villus length to crypt depth (V/C) in the cold group were higher than that in the control group. 2) Cold acclimation increased the number of endothelial lymphocytes in the small intestine. 3) Cold acclimation significantly increased the number of goblet cells in the duodenum, the jejunum and the ileum. These results indicate that  the structure of small intestinal mucosa and the number and distribution of immune cells may undergo plastic changes in cold environments. These changes may be related to high energy demand and changes of immune function .

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The effect of defensive aggression on energy budget in striped hamsters

MIN Hongxia, MAO Sisi, HUANG Yixin, ZHAO Zhijun

2018, 38(2):  166-173.  DOI: 10.16829/j.slxb.150160

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Aggression behavior is among the most efficient means of competition, which achieves dominance of gaining access to resources, and ensures individual survival and reproductive success. The present study was aimed to understand the energy strategy of aggressive behavior in small mammals. Adult male striped hamsters, a solitary and aggressive animal species, were used in this study, in which intruder hamsters were introduced into the home cage of resident hamsters for 10 min per day, using a resident-intruder model. Energy intake and basal metabolic rate (BMR) were measured in resident hamsters and controls that had no intruders, after twenty-one days of resident-intruder tests. The correlations between BMR and masses of inner organs were examined using Pearson’s correlation analysis. The data showed that the resident hamsters increased BMR by 26.2%, and also significantly elevated gross and digestive energy intake compared to their counterparts without aggressive behavior. Body mass, carcass mass, and masses of liver, lung, kidneys, stomach, small intestine and caecum increased significantly in the Resident group compared to Control group. Significant positive correlations were observed between these organs and BMR. These findings suggest that the adaptive energy budget is employed by striped hamsters to meet the aggressive behavior, within which the energy expenditure caused by defensive aggression is compensated by an increase in energy intake. The intensive conspecific aggression between individuals may be one of the factors influencing higher BMR of this species.

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Construction and discussion of whole-genome phylogeny of mammals by alignment-free method

WU Wei, ZHANG Mengjie, ZHU Lifeng，WU Qi

2018, 38(2):  174-182.  DOI: 10.16829/j.slxb.150127

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Alignment-free methods have been used to analyze genomic or proteomic sequences by characterizing and comparing statistical features of sequences, or the frequencies of certain kmer within sequences. These methods have unique advantages for summarizing the overall features of -omic data since it takes into account the influence of all of the variation types on the whole sequence. In this work, a phylogenetic relationships of NJ trees were established using the CVTree software based on the alignment-free method, and includes the proteome data of 45 mammalian species. We discuss several issues on phylogenetic relationships of mammals according to these trees. On the relation of four superorders within Eutheira, our results provided evidence for the hypothesis of epistheria, which is in line with the morphological conclusion but different from the Exafro-Placentalia hypothesis mainly supported by sequence alignment methods. At the order level, the tree is primarily consistent with the phylogenetic relationships accepted by both morpholigical and molecular evidence. But within the order level there are more discrepancies. The results show that the alignment-free method is available in phylogenetic study using -omic data for complex multicellular creatures. The improvement of the alignment-free method itself and its comparison with traditional sequence alignment methods still need more in-depth studies.

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Genetic variation of different populations in tree shrews（Tupaia belangeri）based on mtDNA cytochrome oxidase subunitⅠgene

FU Jiahao, WANG Xiao, ZHU Wanlong, GAO Wenrong, WANG Zhengkun

2018, 38(2):  183-191.  DOI: 10.16829/j.slxb.150110

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Tree shrews (Tupaia belangeri) are widely distributed in southeast Asia, mainly in Hainan Island and southwest regions of China. In the present study, PCR amplification of CO I gene sequence of 1398 BP was used to analyze 10 geographic populations consisting of 112 tree shrews as the research objects,. A total of 64 haplotypes were defined in CO I gene of the 112 samples, the haplotype diversity (Hd) averaged value was 0.9730, and the average value of nucleotide diversity (Pi) was 0.04494; analysis of AMOVA showed that variation among populations accounted for 93.09% of the total variance, suggesting that mutations occurred mainly in populations. The overall genetic differentiation index (F_ST) fixed to 0.93091, indicating that the populations of tree shrews have obvious genetic differentiation. Combination with neutral inspection and mismatch distribution analysis showed that T. belangeri had not experienced population expansion phenomenon in history . A phylogenetic tree constructed of haplotypes and NETWORK diagram showed that 10 the geographic populations of tree shrews were clustered into 4 branches: Hainan population, Daxin population, Pianma population and other populations. All of the results showed that there was higher genetic diversity of different geographical populations of the China in T. belangeri.  Different populations displayed obvious genetic differentiation and geographical barrier effects may be the main reason for the differentiation.


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Molecular evolution of the RNase10 in Cetartiodactyla

LANG Datian, SANG Zhenglin

2018, 38(2):  192-200.  DOI: 10.16829/j.slxb.150123

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Pancreatic ribonuclease 10，which is encoded by RNase10, is a vertebrate-specific reproductive enzyme. Studies of RNase10 mainly focus on physiological function, while molecular evolution is not commonly addressed. Here, 26 RNase10s from 24 available genomic sequences of Cetartiodactyla species were identified. Surprisingly, gene duplications were mostly detected in the Artiodactyla species of Bubalus bubalis and Sus scrofa, whereas only a single RNase10 was observed in the other 22 species examined. Phylogenetic analyses with diverse methods resulted in a well-resolved phylogeny, dividing Cetacea into Odontoceti and Mysticeti, supporting monophyly of Tylopoda and Suina. The signature motif CKXXNTF has been changed and the isoelectric point (pI) is lower than that for any other RNASE A members, raising the possibility that Cetartiodactyla RNase10 may lack ribonuclease or antibacterial activities. Moreover, 13 positive sites were detected. Two of the 13 sites are observed to near the structure Cysteine of the RNase10 enzyme. Our results demonstrate the evolutionary mechanism and establishe an important theoretical foundation for future functional assays in Cetartiodactyla RNase10.


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Activity pattern of plateau zokor（Eospalax baileyi）and its influences in eastern Qilian Mountain region

JI Chengpeng, ZHOU Jianwei, CHU Bin, ZHOU Rui, WANG Zhipeng, WANG Ting, TIAN Yongliang, ZHOU Yanshan, HUA Limin

2018, 38(2):  201-210.  DOI: 10.16829/j.slxb.150107

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Understanding of the activity pattern of subterranean rodents has a great importance to understanding their survival strategies, such as foraging, reproduction, etc. We used radio-tracking technology to monitor the activity pattern of the plateau zokor (Eospalax baileyi) in eastern Qilian Mountain region and analyzed the correlation between soil temperature and tempo of activity of the plateau zokor. The results showed that: (1) the plateau zokor exhibited bimodal patterns of activity throughout 24 h cycles. The first peak time of activity intensity was around 6:00 from June to September, the second peak time was 20:00-22:00 from June to September. During October, the first and second peak time was at 8:00 in the morning and 18:00 PM in the evening respectively. The discrepancy index of daily activity (θ) indicated that the activity time of the plateau zokor was evenly distributed over 24 hours in June. The diurnal and noctumal index(λ) indicated that the plateau zokor was active during the day from June to October. The peak-type index (φ) indicated that the level of bimodal patterns during any given 24 hour period was highest in October, followed by September, July, August and June. The daily-activity time index(A_T) indicated that the activity time of the plateau zokor was 7 hours per day in September and was over 10 hours per day in other months. (2) Correlation analysis showed that the activity intensity at 6:00 in September was positively correlated with the soil temperature at a depth of 5 cm underground (P<0.05). In other months, there was no significant correlation between activity intensity and soil temperature (P>0.05). Based on the above results, we concluded that the activity pattern of the plateau zokor is influenced by changes in light intensity and day length, and the activity intensity of the zokor was not affected by the soil temperature.

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A new record of Crocidura tanakae Kuroda，1938 in Sichuan and Guizhou Provinces

CHEN Shunde, ZHANG Qi, LI Fengjun, WANG Xuming, WANG Qiong, LIU Shaoying

2018, 38(2):  211-216.  DOI: 10.16829/j.slxb.150089

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In June 2014, six shrew specimens were collected from Mt. Emei and Dujiangyan, Sichuan, and Mt. Fanjingshan, Guizhou in our field survey. Species identification was performed by molecular study. The results suggested the six collected specimens were Crocidura tanakae, new records for the species in Sichuan and Guizhou Province. These new records of Crocidura tanakae expand the distribution of this species and confirm the species presence in mainland of China again.

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First records of Indochinese arboreal niviventer (Chiromyscus langbianis) in Yunnan Province, China

CHENG Feng, CHEN Zhongzheng, ZHANG Bin, HE Kai, JIANG Xuelong

2018, 38(2):  217-220.  DOI: 10.16829/j.slxb.150124

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On September 20th, 2014, two specimens were collected with Sherman traps in Mengsong, Xishuangbanna (21°30ʹ00″N, 100°29ʹ24″E, 1604 m asl). Hair, tail and skull morphologies are  similar to those of the specimen from the type locality (Langbian Peaks, Da Lat, Vietnam). The P-distance of Cyt b between the population in China and the topotypes is only 5.3%. These two samples are identified as Chiromyscus langbianis based on morphological and phylogenetical analyses. This is the first record of C. langbianis in Yunnan Province. The habitat of collection is evergreen broad-leaf forest.


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A preliminary report on wildlife camera-trapping monitoring in Kuankuoshui National Nature Reserve, Guizhou Province

SU Haijun, LI Guangrong, CHEN Guangping, YAO Xiaogang, ZHANG Mingming, HU Canshi

2018, 38(2):  221-229.  DOI: 10.16829/j.slxb.150132

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In order to systematically survey wildlife resources in Kuankuoshui National Nature Reserve of Guizhou Province, infrared cameras were placed in the northern part of the nature reserve within systematic sampling grids (1km × 1km). Key results included: 1) Four species were recorded for the first time which was very helpful to the local biological inventory, including Garrulax maesi, Luscinia cyane, Turdus boulboul, and Dremomys pyrrhomerus (newly recorded in Kuankuoshui NR). 2) The dominant species, with high picture rates (PR), included Chrysolophus pictus (PR: 1.09%), Bambusicola thoracica (0.44), Dremomys pyrrhomerus (3.16), Sus scrofa (0.69), and Muntiacus reevesi (0.49). All of these species had different activity patterns. Sus scrofa showed one main peak at 11:00-13:30 and a secondary peak (08:00-09:00). Muntiacus reevesi showed two activity peaks at 09:30-11:30 and 17:00-19:00. Dremomys pyrrhomerus did not have obvious peaks but was more active from 08:00-10:00. Bambusicola thoracica had several activity peaks, and Chrysolophus pictus was very active at 10:00-11:00 and 16:00-17:00. 3) Neither vegetation type nor elevation showed a significant influence on PR in the monitoring area. Through camera monitoring with systematic sampling, the general situation of biodiversity of birds and mammals in this Nature Reserve has been reflected, which are benefits for local biological inventory, conservation policy-making, and the further ecological researches on species.

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Evaluation efficiency of an ultrasonic pest repeller on male Rattus losea

LIU Quansheng, CHEN Qin, CHEN Yi, QIN Jiao, SU Qianqian

2018, 38(2):  230-234.  DOI: 10.16829/j.slxb.150187

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Ultrasonic pest repellers are important devices for the control of rodent pests by physical methods. However, scientific and uniform methods for evaluating the efficiency of ultrasonic repellers in repelling pest rats are lacking. In this study, we tested the efficiency of one ultrasonic pest repeller on adult male Rattus losea under laboratory condition by comparing the rat number and food intake in two adjacent rooms with open or close repellers. Results showed that rat number and food intake in the room with open repeller were significantly lowere by 27% and 17%, respectively, than that in the room with a closed repeller after 7 days. The tested repeller had some efficiency on R. losea, but isn’t adequate for controlling rodent pests in room conditions.