Wang Zihan, Zeng Cong, Cao Ling
School of Oceanography, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200030, China.
J Environ Manage. 2023 Jun 15;336:117667. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.117667. Epub 2023 Mar 4.
Being one of the most productive China seas, the East China Sea is facing the challenge of unprecedented biodiversity loss and habitat degradation under the dual pressure of anthropogenic disturbance and climate change. Although marine protected areas (MPAs) are considered an effective conservation tool, it remains unclear whether existing MPAs adequately protect marine biodiversity. To investigate this issue, we first constructed a maximum entropy model to predict the distributions of 359 threatened species and identified its species richness hotspots in the East China Sea. Then we identified priority conservation areas (PCAs) under different protection scenarios. Since the actual conservation in the East China Sea is far from the goals proposed by Convention on Biological Diversity, we calculated a more realistic conservation goal by quantifying the relationship between the percentage of protected areas in the East China Sea and the average proportion of habitats covered for all species. Finally, we mapped conservation gaps by comparing the PCAs under the proposed goal and existing MPAs. Our results showed that these threatened species were very heterogeneously distributed, and their abundance was highest at low latitudes and in nearshore areas. The identified PCAs were distributed mainly in nearshore areas, especially in the Yangtze River estuary and along the Taiwan Strait. Based on the current distribution of threatened species, we suggest a minimum conservation goal of 20.4% of the total area of the East China Sea. Only 8.8% of the recommended PCAs are currently within the existing MPAs. We recommend expanding the MPAs in six areas to achieve the minimum conservation target. Our findings provide a solid scientific reference and a reasonable short-term target for China to realize the vision of protecting 30% of its oceans by 2030.
作为中国生物多样性最为丰富的海域之一，东海正面临着前所未有的生物多样性丧失和栖息地退化的挑战，这是由人为干扰和气候变化的双重压力造成的。尽管海洋保护区被认为是一种有效的保护工具，但现有海洋保护区是否能充分保护海洋生物多样性仍不明确。为了研究这个问题，我们首先构建了一个最大熵模型来预测359种受威胁物种的分布，并确定其在东海的物种丰富度热点地区。然后我们确定了不同保护情景下的优先保护区。由于东海的实际保护情况与《生物多样性公约》提出的目标相差甚远，我们通过量化东海保护区面积百分比与所有物种栖息地覆盖平均比例之间的关系，计算出了一个更现实的保护目标。最后，我们通过比较建议目标下的优先保护区和现有海洋保护区，绘制了保护缺口图。我们的结果表明，这些受威胁物种分布非常不均匀，其丰度在低纬度和近岸地区最高。确定的优先保护区主要分布在近岸地区，特别是长江口和台湾海峡沿线。根据受威胁物种的当前分布情况，我们建议将东海总面积的20.4%作为最低保护目标。目前，现有海洋保护区仅覆盖了建议优先保护区的8.8%。我们建议在六个地区扩大海洋保护区，以实现最低保护目标。我们的研究结果为中国在2030年前实现保护其30%海洋的愿景提供了坚实的科学参考和合理的短期目标。
