# Linking Seasonal Dietary Strategies and Selectivity to Inform Forage Restoration for Przewalski’s Gazelle on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau

## TL;DR

Przewalski’s gazelles rely on specific plants during food-scarce spring and switch to a more varied diet in summer, offering guidance for habitat restoration in Qinghai Lake National Park.

## Contribution

The study identifies season-specific forage preferences and key plant species for gazelle survival in fragmented, seasonal habitats.

## Key findings

- Gazelles depend on a few grass species in spring but diversify their diet in summer.
- Electivity analyses reveal consistent core plant preferences and seasonal priority forage species.
- Findings guide habitat restoration and zoned management in Qinghai Lake National Park.

## Abstract

The Przewalski’s gazelle is an endangered antelope found only in the Qinghai Lake Basin of China. These animals live in fragmented habitats and face serious challenges in finding enough food, especially during the food-scarce spring. To support effective conservation, it is important to understand not only what plants gazelles eat, but which plants they actively prefer. In this study, we examined the diets of nine gazelle subpopulations across different seasons by comparing plant remains in feces with the vegetation available in their habitats. We found that gazelles depend heavily on a small number of grass species to survive the difficult spring period, but shift to a more diverse diet that includes legumes and high-quality plants during summer. Importantly, gazelles do not simply consume the most abundant plants; they consistently select certain preferred species depending on the season. We identified key forage plants that are essential for gazelle survival. These findings provide practical guidance for habitat restoration and management in Qinghai Lake National Park and contribute to the long-term conservation of endangered herbivores living in seasonally constrained environments.

Understanding the forage resources that sustain endangered herbivores under strong seasonal constraints is essential for effective habitat restoration. Przewalski’s gazelle (Procapra przewalskii), an endemic ungulate restricted to the Qinghai Lake Basin on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau, persists in fragmented subpopulations facing pronounced seasonal bottlenecks in forage availability. Here, we investigated seasonal dietary strategies and forage selectivity across nine geographically isolated subpopulations by integrating fecal microhistological diet analysis with vegetation surveys and availability-corrected Jacobs’ electivity indices. Gazelle diets were compressed in early spring, dominated by graminoids (Poaceae and Cyperaceae), but expanded substantially during summer, with increased contributions from Fabaceae and Rosaceae and significantly higher richness and niche breadth. Electivity analyses revealed a hierarchical spectrum of preferences structured around core foundation taxa consistently selected across seasons, complemented by season-specific priority resources during spring bottlenecks and summer abundance. Basin-wide pairwise ranking further identified seasonal priority forage taxa with varying spatial consistency across subpopulations. These findings provide a seasonally explicit framework for identifying key forage targets and guiding evidence-based restoration and zoned management within Qinghai Lake National Park, offering transferable insights for conserving endangered plateau herbivores under fragmentation and strong seasonal resource limitation.