Abstract

During 2002 and 2003, the habitat characteristics of wild Chinese alligator were studied in the National Nature Reserve for Chinese Alligator in the south of Anhui Province by collecting samples from among the 22 locations where wild Chinese alligator used to occur or occur currently. Eight ecological factors potentially related to alligator occurrence, i.e., shelter condition of bank, situation of islands, stability of water, pH value of water area, snail abundance, texture of soil, density of bamboo, and vegetation type, were measured according to data collected from each location. The habitat characteristics of wild Chinese alligator have been analyzed and studied with the methods of resource selection functions (RSF) and principal component analysis. The results showed that association of the above 8 factors to the survival of the wild Chinese alligator followed the following descending order: shelter condition of bank, pH value of water area, snail abundance, density of bamboo, stability of water, texture of soil, situation of islands and vegetation type, with the shelter condition of bank as the major factor (OR=13.628) and situation of islands and vegetation type as the least associated.