Yanwen Fu, Guojing Zhao, Wenqian Dai, Yue Wang, Jiawei Li, Mengyu Tan, Yan Li, Haoran Liu, Bing Xie, Xiao Jin, Enyu Fan, Lulu Zhao, Jian Cao, Lei Yue, Chenghao Wu, Yongfeng Chen, Guoqiang Chen, Yong Zhang, Kezi Luo, Haitao Yang, Xuemei Han, Jianping Ge, Jun Zhu, Limin Feng
Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Engineering, Northeast Tiger and Leopard Biodiversity National Observation and Research Station, National Forestry and Grassland Administration Amur Tiger and Amur Leopard Monitoring and Research Center, National Forestry and Grassland Administration Key Laboratory for Conservation Ecology in Northeast Tiger and Leopard National Park, College of Life Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Engineering, Northeast Tiger and Leopard Biodiversity National Observation and Research Station, National Forestry and Grassland Administration Amur Tiger and Amur Leopard Monitoring and Research Center, National Forestry and Grassland Administration Key Laboratory for Conservation Ecology in Northeast Tiger and Leopard National Park, College of Life Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
Sci Total Environ. 2023 Feb 1;858(Pt 1):159790. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.159790. Epub 2022 Oct 26.
The Chinese Loess Plateau has been the cradle of Chinese civilization and the main human settlement in China for thousands of years, where anthropogenic activities are believed to have deeply eroded natural landscapes. After decades of minimal leopard sighting in forests of northern China, due to serious human interference, we recently discovered that the leopard population is recovering. This finding provides hope for successful biodiversity conservation in human-dominated ecosystems. To understand the mechanism of leopard return into such a highly fragmented landscape, we applied the concept of ecological networks (ENs) to identify key factors promoting leopard restoration and quantify the ecological links among habitats. We first determined the existence of a healthy leopard population in the study area based on the size of its home range and presence of breeding individuals. We then innovatively used the relationship between species richness and top predators to generate ENs, and found that the connectivity of ENs had a significant positive interaction with leopard survival. Our study validates the effectiveness of establishing ecologically connected habitats for leopard protection, and highlights the importance of applying ENs for conservation planning in highly fragmented ecosystems. This study provides a successful case for the protection of top predators in human-dominated landscapes.
中国黄土高原数千年来一直是中华文明的摇篮和中国主要的人类聚居地，据信人类活动已对自然景观造成了严重侵蚀。由于严重的人类干扰，在中国北方森林中，人们已经几十年很少见到豹了，但最近我们发现豹的数量正在恢复。这一发现为在人类主导的生态系统中成功开展生物多样性保护带来了希望。为了解豹回归到这样一个高度破碎化景观中的机制，我们应用生态网络（ENs）的概念来确定促进豹种群恢复的关键因素，并量化栖息地之间的生态联系。我们首先根据豹的家域大小和繁殖个体的存在情况，确定研究区域内存在健康的豹种群。然后，我们创新性地利用物种丰富度与顶级捕食者之间的关系来构建生态网络，发现生态网络的连通性与豹的生存有着显著的正相关。我们的研究验证了建立生态连通栖息地对保护豹的有效性，并强调了在高度破碎化的生态系统中应用生态网络进行保护规划的重要性。这项研究为在人类主导的景观中保护顶级捕食者提供了一个成功案例。
