Factors affecting seasonal fine-scale habitat use by wild ungulates in Vansda National Park, Gujarat, India

Abstract Assessing habitat use of ungulates is essential for their long-term conservation in protected areas. Present study assessed the fine scale seasonal habitat use of three wild ungulate species i.e . Axis axis , Muntiacus muntjak and Tetracerus quadricornis in Vansda National Park, Gujarat, India using presence-absence sampling from September 2023 to April 2024. Data were collected using 10-m radius circular plots on 20 randomly placed transects of one km length resulting in total effort of 120 sampling sites. We used binomial generalized model by treating species presence-absence as response variable, and eight ecological and two anthropogenic covariates as predictor variables. We created models with all possible combinations of ecologically significant covariates for each species and best models were selected based on ΔAIC < 2. In winter, spotted deer prefer canopy cover and grass cover. Barking deer favor canopy cover in both seasons and shrubs in winter. Four-horned antelopes avoid grass cover in winter and prefer canopy cover in both the seasons. These highlighted varying responses of ungulates towards dynamics resources. Therefore, future management practices should consider differential response of ungulates towards resources during seasonal changes and livestock grazing in Vansda.