TY - JOUR
T1 - Forest-cover change rather than climate change determined giant panda's population persistence
AU - Wang, Yue
AU - Lan, Tianyuan
AU - Deng, Shuyu
AU - Zang, Zhenhua
AU - Zhao, Zhixia
AU - Xie, Zongqiang
AU - Xu, Wenting
AU - Shen, Guozhen
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021
PY - 2022/1
Y1 - 2022/1
N2 - Climate and land-use change are two primary drivers of global biodiversity loss, which increase the risks of extinction for giant panda, an umbrella and one of the most heavily invested species in conservation. Understanding how giant panda responds to these environmental changes thus is critical for developing long-term effective conservation strategies. However, until now most studies focused on only the effects of either climate change or land-use change on giant panda. So, if the potential combined effects of these processes are greater than either of them, the current conservation recommendations would be inappropriate or misleading. Here, based on two national survey data on giant panda occurrences across nearly thirty years, we quantified the variation of giant panda's population persistence as a function of land-use (measured as forest-cover) change, climate (measured as annual mean temperature (MAT), annual mean summer temperature (MAST) and annual mean precipitation (MAP)) change, and the synergistic effect of land-use and climate change. We found forest-cover change explained 38.1% of giant panda's persistence variation, while climate change explained 20.1% of the variation, and the synergistic effect of land-use and climate change explained only 1.5% of the variation. We confirmed that forest-cover change surpassed climate change or the synergistic effect between them as the greatest force driving giant panda's population persistence. Our findings highlighted the urgent need for a more comprehensive understanding of the relative effects of climate change by integrating climate change and land-use change rather than just focusing on climate change in tackling global biodiversity loss.
AB - Climate and land-use change are two primary drivers of global biodiversity loss, which increase the risks of extinction for giant panda, an umbrella and one of the most heavily invested species in conservation. Understanding how giant panda responds to these environmental changes thus is critical for developing long-term effective conservation strategies. However, until now most studies focused on only the effects of either climate change or land-use change on giant panda. So, if the potential combined effects of these processes are greater than either of them, the current conservation recommendations would be inappropriate or misleading. Here, based on two national survey data on giant panda occurrences across nearly thirty years, we quantified the variation of giant panda's population persistence as a function of land-use (measured as forest-cover) change, climate (measured as annual mean temperature (MAT), annual mean summer temperature (MAST) and annual mean precipitation (MAP)) change, and the synergistic effect of land-use and climate change. We found forest-cover change explained 38.1% of giant panda's persistence variation, while climate change explained 20.1% of the variation, and the synergistic effect of land-use and climate change explained only 1.5% of the variation. We confirmed that forest-cover change surpassed climate change or the synergistic effect between them as the greatest force driving giant panda's population persistence. Our findings highlighted the urgent need for a more comprehensive understanding of the relative effects of climate change by integrating climate change and land-use change rather than just focusing on climate change in tackling global biodiversity loss.
KW - Climate change
KW - Colonization
KW - Extinction
KW - Forest-cover change
KW - Giant panda's persistence
KW - Synergistic effect
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85122103691&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.biocon.2021.109436
DO - 10.1016/j.biocon.2021.109436
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85122103691
SN - 0006-3207
VL - 265
JO - Biological Conservation
JF - Biological Conservation
M1 - 109436
ER -