关键词: 鹅喉羚, 警戒, 群体大小, 季节, 性别

Abstract: Animals receive benefits from their gregarious habit. As part of a group, individuals spend less time having tobe vigilant, therefore more time on other behaviours, such as feeding. This phenomenon, called “group size effect”, is considered the most dominant factor in an animal’s demonstrated level of vigilance. However, in addition to group size, many other social and environmental factors also influence the degree of vigilance, including the season of the year and the sex of the individual. In order to examine vigilance behaviour of Goitred gazelles and to ascertain if a group size effect existed, the percentage of total time, vigilance duration, and vigilance frequency were recorded using the focal sampling method in the Kalamaili Mountain Nature Reserve during a two year period (2007 - 2009). According to our results, we found that seasonal factors which lead to the changes of biomass weren’t of substantial influence on a gazelle’s level of vigilance. Gazelles decreased their vigilance level with increasing of group size in any season, though this trend was not so significant except for males in fall and winter. Sexes have significant influence on the vigilance behaviour of Goitred gazelle. Females were more vigilant in summer (P < 0. 05), because of the presence of young, and males were more vigilant in winter (P <0. 05), because of their rut period. In spring and fall such differences between sexes were not significant (P >0.05). In comparison, the yearly breeding cycle was the most powerful factor, which significantly changed the degree of vigilance in females during birthing and males during rut.

Key words: Goitred gazelles, Group size, Season, Sex, Vigilance