The Wildlife Institute at Beijing Forestry University, School of Nature Conservation, Beijing Forestry University, Haidian District, Beijing, China.
Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2018 Nov 8;13(11):e0204764. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0204764. eCollection 2018.
Protection of the world's remaining forests and biodiversity is a matter of global concern. Yunnan, China is home to China's only mainland tropical rainforests, and 20% of China's total biodiversity. Despite restoration measures and establishment of new protected areas, this region is still experiencing biodiversity loss due to inadequate management and monitoring. We evaluate restoration success of China's tropical forests in Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve (XSBN-NNR), Yunnan, China using dung beetles as an indicator taxon. We sampled across a land-use gradient of human alteration: protected forest, restored forest, community owned forest, and rubber plantation. We collected 3,748 dung beetles from 21 species over a 3 month period. Multivariate analyses revealed unique assemblages in each land-use category, but with restored forest most similar to protected areas, suggesting restoration success in this region. Community forests were more diverse than plantations, suggesting that community forests may be a valuable and practical conservation tool in this region. Most species were generalists, although some had dietary and habitat preferences. Furthermore, dietary niche breadths were, on average, higher in disturbed areas, suggesting that disturbance may result in dietary changes. We show that restoration of tropical forests appears to be successful for a key ecological and biological indicator group- dung beetles. Furthermore, community-owned forests appear to be valuable and practical method of maintaining ecosystem health and biodiversity in the region. Future management in this region would likely benefit from encouragement to maintain community-owned forests, economic incentives for restoring farmland to forest, and increased environmental monitoring across the land-use gradient.
保护世界上剩余的森林和生物多样性是全球关注的问题。中国云南拥有中国唯一的大陆热带雨林和中国 20%的生物多样性。尽管采取了恢复措施和建立了新的保护区，但由于管理和监测不足，该地区仍在经历生物多样性的丧失。我们利用蜣螂作为指示分类群来评估中国西双版纳国家自然保护区（XSBN-NNR）热带森林的恢复成功。我们在人类干扰的土地利用梯度上进行了采样：保护区、恢复区、社区所有森林和橡胶种植园。我们在 3 个月的时间内从 21 个物种中收集了 3748 只蜣螂。多元分析显示，每个土地利用类别都有独特的组合，但恢复森林与保护区最为相似，表明该地区的恢复成功。社区森林比种植园更具多样性，这表明社区森林可能是该地区有价值和实用的保护工具。大多数物种是普通物种，尽管有些物种有饮食和栖息地偏好。此外，受干扰地区的饮食生态位宽度平均较高，这表明干扰可能导致饮食变化。我们表明，热带森林的恢复似乎对关键的生态和生物指标类群——蜣螂是成功的。此外，社区所有的森林对于维护该地区的生态系统健康和生物多样性似乎是一种有价值和实用的方法。未来该地区的管理可能受益于鼓励维持社区所有的森林、为将农田恢复为森林提供经济激励以及在土地利用梯度上增加环境监测。
