Habitat selection of four sympatric pheasants in Guanshan National Nature Reserve, Jiangxi, China

Habitat selection of four sympatric pheasants ( Syrmaticus ellioti , Lophura nycthemera , Pucrasia macrolopha and Bumbusicola thoracica ) was studied in Guanshan National Nature Reserve, Jiangxi, China from October 2009 to November 2010. We measured seventeen ecological factors across 388 sites used by the four pheasants by direct observation in six transects. The results show that the pheasants preferred broad-leaved forest and coniferous forest and a sunny or semi-shaded slope. There were differences in elevation, degree of slope, arbor coverage, shrub coverage, shrub quantity, shrub height, herbage cover, herbage species, herbage quantity, leaf litter coverage, distance to water and arbor species between the habitat selected by the four pheasants. Canonical scores indicated that the four pheasants differed in habitat selection to some extent. A stepwise discriminant analysis revealed that elevation, herbage quantity, shrub height, distance to water, shrub cover, arbor cover, degree of slope, leaf litter cover, shrub quantity and herbage cover were the critical factors distinguishing habitat selection between the species. Predicted classification accuracy of the model was 74.7%