Ecological Peculiarities of the Habitat of the Common Pheasant (Phasianus colchicus L.) in the Modern Forest-Steppe of Ukraine

Abstract

The number of normal or Caucasian pheasant (Phasianus colchicus Linnaeus, 1758) which is useful for hunting and agriculture in forest-steppe of Ukraine remains very low, which is a prerequisite for a scientific research. Our study aims at identification and description of environmental factors that define the current status of common pheasant population in the forest-steppe of Ukraine. The authors selected data reporting model from four administrative regions as follows: Western forest-Steppe natural-agricultural province (LS-1) – Ternopil region; right Bank forest-Steppe natural-agricultural province (LS-2) – Khmelnytsky, Vinnytsia regions; left Bank forest-Steppe natural-agricultural province (LS-3) – Poltava region. For creation of a database of the species number in some natural and agricultural provinces of the forest-steppe of Ukraine used the indicators of the state statistical reporting forms "2-TP (hunting)". The results of the research have shown that the number of populations of common pheasant were in close correlations with key climatic factors. The only exception is the average humidity in LS-2, which is negatively correlated with the number of birds in the middle degree, significantly. Cenopopulation LS-2 discovered the self-healing respond to a much larger range of environmental factors, whereas in cenopopulations LS-3 (lim = 192‑564 ind.), the ability to heal itself which is open to question, there was only one statistically significant negative relationship with the area of bean crops. Thus, our conclusions are as follows. Further recovery of shelter forest cover, taking into account management recommendations for the species, and a crackdown on predatory mammals should facilitate the expansion of the common pheasant in the right-bank forest-steppe natural-agricultural province. At the time, as in the left bank –an increase in the number of birds in the hunting grounds, to the level of the density of cenopopulations in the LS-2 or more at the expense of introduction on the background of complex ecological monitoring of vital functions of the species should be the fundamental basis for further improvement.

Keywords

• common pheasant
• environmental factors
• correlation
• ukrainian forest-steppe