A fundamental prerequisite for conservation and management of animal populations is to know the mechanisms that drive population fluctuations. Analysis of time series data may play an important role in the detection of such mechanisms. However, long-term time series are rare and ungulate data sets hardly exceed 50 years. In this work we describe a long-term data set of population densities of 5 ungulate species, obtained from the analysis of hunting records. The species were: Roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), Fallow deer (Dama dama), Red deer (Cervus elaphus), Wild boar (Sus scrofa) and an introduced antelope, the Nilgai (Boselaphus tragocamelus). The study area (Castelporziano) is a 60 Km2 fenced estate, located near Rome (Italy). The area was used as a royal hunting preserve until 1946, when it was assigned to the President of Italian Republic. Hunting was limited to controlled shooting parties: plots of woodlands were in part surrounded by mobile curtains, and animals were driven towards the hunters’ line by dogs. For each party accurate reports were compiled. A total of 1087 reports, for which it was possible to assess the dimension of the enclosed area and the number of specimens killed, were used to create the data set. Yearly estimates of densities for the five species were computed for the period 1878-1986. The data were validated, when possible, confronting density estimates with counts data (1906-1942). A good agreement between the two independent data sets was obtained (Roe deer: R2=0.74; Fallow deer: R2=0.53; Wild boar: R2= 0.83). The resulting time series, almost unique for both its length and number of species, provide the basis for the analysis of the role of climatic factors and inter-specific competition on ungulate population dynamics. This work emphasize the value of hunting records as indexes of densities of game populations, even if attention must be paid to the relation between bag data and actual animal abundances.
A 109 years-long time series of abundance indexes of 5 ungulate species: a complete data set obtained from bag records / S.Imperio; M.Ferrante; G.Santini; S.Focardi. - STAMPA. - International Union of Game Biologists XXVIII Congress 13-18 August 2007 Uppsala, Sweden - Book of Abstracts:(2007), pp. 311-311. (Intervento presentato al convegno International Union of Game Biologists XXVIII Congres tenutosi a Sweden nel 13-18 August 2007).
A 109 years-long time series of abundance indexes of 5 ungulate species: a complete data set obtained from bag records
IMPERIO, SIMONA;SANTINI, GIACOMO;
2007
Abstract
A fundamental prerequisite for conservation and management of animal populations is to know the mechanisms that drive population fluctuations. Analysis of time series data may play an important role in the detection of such mechanisms. However, long-term time series are rare and ungulate data sets hardly exceed 50 years. In this work we describe a long-term data set of population densities of 5 ungulate species, obtained from the analysis of hunting records. The species were: Roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), Fallow deer (Dama dama), Red deer (Cervus elaphus), Wild boar (Sus scrofa) and an introduced antelope, the Nilgai (Boselaphus tragocamelus). The study area (Castelporziano) is a 60 Km2 fenced estate, located near Rome (Italy). The area was used as a royal hunting preserve until 1946, when it was assigned to the President of Italian Republic. Hunting was limited to controlled shooting parties: plots of woodlands were in part surrounded by mobile curtains, and animals were driven towards the hunters’ line by dogs. For each party accurate reports were compiled. A total of 1087 reports, for which it was possible to assess the dimension of the enclosed area and the number of specimens killed, were used to create the data set. Yearly estimates of densities for the five species were computed for the period 1878-1986. The data were validated, when possible, confronting density estimates with counts data (1906-1942). A good agreement between the two independent data sets was obtained (Roe deer: R2=0.74; Fallow deer: R2=0.53; Wild boar: R2= 0.83). The resulting time series, almost unique for both its length and number of species, provide the basis for the analysis of the role of climatic factors and inter-specific competition on ungulate population dynamics. This work emphasize the value of hunting records as indexes of densities of game populations, even if attention must be paid to the relation between bag data and actual animal abundances.
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