Home ranges of sympatric grey rhebok and mountain reedbuck in a South African highveld grassland

Abstract

We investigated home ranges of grey rhebok and mountain reedbuck at Sterkfontein Dam Nature Reserve in South Africa. Minimum convex polygon (MCP) and adaptive kernel methods were used to estimate home ranges and core areas for six grey rhebok herds and ten territorial male mountain reedbuck. MCP (95%) areas for rhebok herds varied between 30 and 103 ha, while for territorial male mountain reedbuck they varied between 8 and 21 ha. There was <10% home range overlap between any two  neighbouring rhebok herds and 5–35% overlap between any two neighbouring territorial male mountain reedbuck. There was complete overlap between the two species indicating no interspecific competitive exclusion. Both species used core areas that coincided with steep slopes. Crude densities were 6.4 rhebok/km² and 11.5 mountain reedbuck/km². Rhebok home ranges were smaller in areas with lots of steep slopes, but territorial male mountain reedbuck home ranges were not correlated with any tested ecological parameters. Instead, female occurrence was correlated to steep slopes, and males that held territories with more steep areas had greater access to females.

Key words: grey rhebok, mountain reedbuck, home ranges, South Africa.