Species coexistence and niche interaction between sympatric giant panda and Chinese red panda: A spatiotemporal approach

Bin Feng; Wenke Bai; Xueyang Fan; Mingxia Fu; Xinqiang Song; Jingyi Liu; Weirui Qin; Jindong Zhang; Dunwu Qi; Rong Hou

doi:10.1002/ece3.9937

Species coexistence and niche interaction between sympatric giant panda and Chinese red panda: A spatiotemporal approach

Ecol Evol. 2023 Apr 21;13(4):e9937. doi: 10.1002/ece3.9937. eCollection 2023 Apr.

Authors

Bin Feng^{1

2}, Wenke Bai^{1

2}, Xueyang Fan¹, Mingxia Fu³, Xinqiang Song³, Jingyi Liu³, Weirui Qin³, Jindong Zhang², Dunwu Qi¹, Rong Hou¹

Affiliations

¹ Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding Sichuan Key Laboratory of Conservation Biology for Endangered Wildlife Chengdu China.
² Key Laboratory of Southwest China Wildlife Resources Conservation China West Normal University Nanchong China.
³ Administration of Daxiangling Nature Reserve Yaan China.

Abstract

The giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) and the Chinese red panda (Ailurus styani) are distributed in the same region in the mountain forest ecosystem on the eastern edge of the Qinghai Tibet Plateau and share the same food sources. In order to understand how sympatric giant pandas and Chinese red pandas maintain interspecific relationships to achieve stable coexistence, we used species distribution models and diurnal activity rhythms to analyze the spatial and temporal niche characteristics of giant pandas and Chinese red pandas in the Daxiangling Mountain system based on 187 camera traps data. The results show that: (1) In the Daxiangling Mountains, the total area of suitable habitats for giant pandas and Chinese red pandas is 717.61 km² and 730.00 km², respectively, accounting for 17.78% and 18.25%, respectively, of the study area. (2) The top five environmental factors contributing to the model of giant panda and Chinese red panda are precipitation seasonality, temperature seasonality, distance to the road, and elevation and vegetation type. (3) The total overlapping area of suitable habitats for giant pandas and Chinese red pandas is 342.23 km², of which the overlapping area of highly suitable habitats is 98.91 km². The overlapping index of suitable habitats is 0.472, and the overlapping index of highly suitable habitats is 0.348, which indicates that the two achieve spatial niches are separated to achieve stable coexistence. (4) The overlapping index of the daily activity rhythm of giant panda and Chinese red panda is 0.87, which is significantly different (p < .05). The existence of Chinese red panda will significantly affect the daily activity rhythm of giant panda (p < .001). This research can provide scientific reference for the researches about population and habitat protection of giant pandas and Chinese red pandas, so as to understand the driving mechanism of resource allocation and population dynamics of sympatric species.

Keywords: Ailuropoda melanoleuca; Ailurus styani; Daxiangling Mountains; coexistence mechanism; spatiotemporal niche.

Associated data

Dryad/10.5061/dryad.3bk3j9kpd