The primate extinction crisis in China: immediate challenges and a way forward
Autor: | Peng-Fei Fan, Qingyong Ni, Jiqi Lu, Zhigang Jiang, Ruliang Pan, Paul A. Garber, Chenming Huang, Xue-Long Jiang, Sidney F. Gouveia, Ricardo Dobrovolski, Charles Oxnard, Cyril C. Grueter, Alejandro Estrada, Xuming Zhou, Peng Zhang, Zhi-Pang Huang, Baoguo Li, Ming Li, Yongcheng Long, Colin P. Groves, Jin-Hua Li |
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Rok vydání: | 2018 |
Předmět: |
0106 biological sciences
Nature reserve education.field_of_study Extinction Ecology Natural resource economics 05 social sciences Population Biodiversity Endangered species 010603 evolutionary biology 01 natural sciences Geography Threatened species Sustainability 0501 psychology and cognitive sciences 050102 behavioral science & comparative psychology education Restoration ecology Ecology Evolution Behavior and Systematics Nature and Landscape Conservation |
Zdroj: | Biodiversity and Conservation. 27:3301-3327 |
ISSN: | 1572-9710 0960-3115 |
Popis: | China is facing an unprecedented set of challenges in balancing the effects of economic development and global climate change with environmental protection and maintaining biodiversity. Although positive steps have been undertaken to remedy this situation, currently 80% of China’s 25 extant primate species are threatened, 15–18 species have population sizes of less than 3000 individuals, and two species of gibbons and one species of langur have been extirpated over the past few decades. Today, virtually all species of primates in China inhabit fragmented landscapes and are distributed in small isolated subpopulations with limited opportunities to exchange individuals or genetic information. Here we present a historical framework examining how human-induced environmental changes, particularly since the second half of the 20th century, accelerated primate population decline in China. In addition, we modeled the expected spatial conflict between agricultural expansion and primate distributions over the next 25–75 years and assessed the current overlap between protected areas and primate distributions. Depending on the assumptions of the spatial conflict model, primate distributions are expected to decline by an additional 51–87% by the year 2100. Thus, unless large-scale conservation policies are implemented immediately the current trend of primate population decline, local extirpation, and species extinctions will accelerate. To mitigate against such extinction scenarios, we advocate the creation of a Chinese national agency and repository of environmental information focused on public awareness and education, the implementation of targeted programs of habitat restoration designed to return impacted forests to a more natural state especially within and at the boundaries of nature reserves, the establishment of additional protect areas, and the construction of a latticework of corridors connecting isolated primate subpopulations. This comprehensive approach offers the most effective way to protect China’s animal and plant biodiversity, including its endangered primate populations. |
Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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