THE ANALYSIS ON THE REPRODUCTIVE ABILITY OF CHINESE ALLIGATOR (ALLIGATOR SINENSIS)IN CAPTIVE POPULATION IN ANHUI PROVINCE AND THE ANTICIPATION OF POPULATION INCREASE

According to analyses of the reproductive parameters in three generations of Chinese alligator during 1982 to 2003 in Anhui Research Center for ChineseAlligator Reproduction (ARCCAR),Xuan Zhou,China,The results Showed that the number of eggs decreased significantly in the recent three years.The rate of fertilization and hatching was(83.80±2.37)%and (89.53±0.86)%,in parental generation, (79.38±2.74)%and (83.78±1.95)% in first filial(F1)generation and (68.7±1.84)%and (88.16±1.68)%in second filial generation(F2).Based on one way ANOVA,the rates of fertilization and hatching among three generations are significantly different (F(ROF))=4.33,P<0.05;F(ROH)=4.56,P<0.05).The analysis on factors affecting alligator's reproduction showed that the number of eggs decreased obviously,and it may be caused by the parental alligator's losing their reproduction and the current of the F1 alligator's reproductive ability declining,not all the F2 alligator's entering reproductive period .We also found that the number of stock alligators was correlated with temperature in April(R=0.979,P<0.01),and the significant difference between the rate of fecundation in filial generation and parental generation was related to inbreeding depression and the lose of genetic diversity.A model in ideal state was built to predict the increase of captive population on the basis of the Time Series Analysis.It was predicted that the number of the captive population would reach 19000 individuals in ten years by this model.We suggest that the ARCCAR should broaden the size of breeding,especially,should broaden the construction of the pond of juvenile alligators and young alligators according to the anticipation of this model together with the consideration of the age structure of the captive population.