Multi-spatial co-distribution of the endangered Ladakh urial and blue sheep in the arid Trans-Himalayan mountains

Large wild herbivores are important ecologically and economically, and maintaining their populations is a crucial management concern. The Ladakh urial Ovis vignei vignei is an endemic and endangered wild sheep inhabiting the arid Trans-Himalayan region of Ladakh, where its population is restricted t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of arid environments Vol. 74; no. 10; pp. 1162 - 1169
Main Authors: Namgail, T., van Wieren, S.E., Mishra, C., Prins, H.H.T.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.10.2010
Subjects:
Aridity
Brackish
Coexistence
communities
competition
conflicts
conservation
Ecology
Economics
Habitat selection
Habitats
herbivores
india
Ladakh
Landscapes
Mountains
Ovis
Ovis vignei
plant phenology
Populations
Pseudois nayaur
Regional
Resource partitioning
Sheep
tibetan argali
wild
India, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh
Ladakh
Coexistence
Habitat selection
Ovis vignei
Resource partitioning
Pseudois nayaur
ISSN:0140-1963, 1095-922X
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Large wild herbivores are important ecologically and economically, and maintaining their populations is a crucial management concern. The Ladakh urial Ovis vignei vignei is an endemic and endangered wild sheep inhabiting the arid Trans-Himalayan region of Ladakh, where its population is restricted to narrow tracts along two river valleys. The causes of this restricted distribution of the species are not understood. We asked if competitive exclusion by the more abundant wild ungulate, the blue sheep Pseudois nayaur, could explain the limited range of Ladakh urial. To explore this possibility we studied the occurrence patterns of these two species at multi-spatial scales (regional, landscape and habitat). We found that they occurred independently at the regional scale, but co-occurred at the landscape scale, facilitated by divergence in seasonal resource use at the habitat scale. Although the two species segregated along both habitat and diet axes during summer at the habitat scale, there is a high potential for competition during winter, the ‘pinch’ period, when they overlap in their habitat use due to altitudinal migration. Therefore, the presence of blue sheep seems to limit the population growth and range expansion of the Ladakh urial.
Bibliography:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaridenv.2010.04.013
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ISSN:0140-1963
1095-922X
DOI:10.1016/j.jaridenv.2010.04.013