Alimentación de Odocoileus virginianus, (Venado de cola blanca) en la localidad El Tibisí, de la Empresa Forestal Integral (EFI)Minas, Pinar del Río, Cuba

Abstract

This research about the feeding of the white-tailed deer was carried out at the locality of El Tibisi, Integral Forest Company of Las Minas, and it was aimed at evaluating the possible food sources in four vegetable formations (gallery forest, natural formation of Pinus tropicalis, plantation of Pinus caribaea and natural formation of pine-encino). For the realization of the research, 8 parcels were selected at each vegetable formation. Starting from its center, each parcel was devided into 4 rectangular –11,20 m long by 1,50 m wide–subparcels (128 altogether). In each subparcel, the pruned plants were identified, as well as their pruning frequency and the number of times each plant appeared although not having been pruned, with the purpose of determining the index of alimentary selectivity; to do so, the Index of Jacobs was used. The study also includes an analysis of the stomach content. It was verified that the white-tailed deer uses for feeding a total of 25 species of plants in the four vegetable formations; being the species Davilla rugosa (Bejuco Colorado de frutos amarillos); Coccocypselum guianensis (Oro Azul); Alibertia edulis (Pitajoni) y Faramea occidentalis (Cafetillo), the ones with the highest index of exploitation and therefore the tastiest. The gallery forest resulted to be the vegetable formation with the highest quantity of alimentary plants consumed by the deer.