Comportamiento de la vicuña alrededor de los bofedales y frente al ganado: un fenómeno pertinente para el manejo de la Reserva de Producción de Fauna Chimborazo

Abstract

This research aims to describe the behavior of the vicuña around bogs and front cattlefour micro basins within the wildlife reserve Chimborazo production; the density of the vicuña in places with cattle and no cattle, in and out of bogs in eight transects estimated the density of fodder plant also estimated and isodar, which is part of the theory of habitat selection was made, wich it was used to predict the density per hectarea in two habitats, resulting isodar indicating that the density of the vicuña with livestock is greater than the the density without cattle level microhabit, taking into account the significant regression (F1,7=9.63 P=0.02) as most of the sites have more vicuñas in places with cattle closer than 30 meters: then it is a significantly different isodar than 1.1 (2.29+ -0.74 slope standard error), which means selection for places near livestock density varies between 0.3 y 0.5 vicuna vicunas per hectare. Near livestock there is a higher density and that no fodder plant communities with skills relating to vicuña; the wetlands and the border area (outside the bofedal) are similar in terms of forage. It is concluded that the preferred vicuña in the larger scale habitat are bogs, considering that the areas where the vicuña has a higher total density are areas with high concentrations of water.

Keywords: Bofedales