Mineral contents of salt-lick water and mammal visitation to salt-lick in tropical rainforests of Peninsula Malaysia

Abstract

Abstract In order to examine the possible mineral supplementing function of salt licks for mammals in tropical rainforests of Peninsular Malaysia, we analysed mineral concentration of water from the salt-licks mainly visited by herbivorous mammals to drink water, and relationship between the mineral concentration and salt-lick visit by mammals. Among analysed minerals, only the concentrations of sodium and calcium were significantly higher in the water from all studied salt-licks than those of the nearby streams in both dry and rainy seasons, indicating that the mammals could supplement these minerals by drinking the salt-lick water. The herbivores most frequently visited the salt-lick with the sodium concentration significantly higher than other salt-licks. In contrast, the omnivores and the carnivores didn’t show such tendency. Among four herbivore species that visited the salt-licks most frequently, red muntjac and sambar, the first and second most-frequent visitors (41.7% and 20.8% of the visitation record by mammals), most frequently visited the salt-lick with highest sodium concentration, but Malayan tapir and white-thighed langur frequently visited the salt-lick with lower sodium concentration. The results are consistent with the hypotheses that sodium supplementation is an important purpose of salt-lick visit by herbivores, but also indicated that the factors other than sodium concentration also affect the selection of the salt-licks to visit by herbivores.