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A preliminary study on designing ecological corridors in Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve with 3S techniques

Authors:
  • Beijing Normal University/Amur Tiger and Leopard Monitoring and Research Center of National Forestry and Grassland Administration/Northeast Tiger and Leopard Biodiversity National Observation and Research Station

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This paper is based on the fieldwork in Xishuangbanna Natioanl Nature Reserve in Yunnan Province of China. GPS data of Asian elephants were collected and analyzed with the remote sensing satellite photos of the region to estimate the landform physiognomy of different colors. We also analyzed a series of ecological factors including altitude, landform, relief, villages and roads which affected the distribution and movement of Asian elephants. The results suggested the possibility of designing and establishing corridors in Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve to protect the population of wild elephants in the region.
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... The improved ability to predict the movement of this endangered species will alleviate human-elephant conflicts, promote the harmonious coexistence between humans and nature, and provide reference for biological protection and biological reserve planning. Lin et al. [39] collected the existing distribution data of wild Asian elephants in Xishuangbanna and the distribution data of towns, villages, and roads in the wild and the habitat types and migration habits preferred ...
... The improved ability to predict the movement of this endangered species will alleviate human-elephant conflicts, promote the harmonious coexistence between humans and nature, and provide reference for biological protection and biological reserve planning. Lin et al. [39] collected the existing distribution data of wild Asian elephants in Xishuangbanna and the distribution data of towns, villages, and roads in the wild and the habitat types and migration habits preferred by wild Asian elephants, using GIS technology to explore how to choose the appropriate corridor belt route. Unfortunately, our conservation efforts are limited, and due to the neglect of the high randomness of biological activities, this research result can only provide reference for the construction of an ecological corridor in the Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve. ...
... The circuit theory model used in this paper can cheaply and practically be used to alleviate humanelephant conflicts with only a small amount of publicly available data. Furthermore, we can ground truth the efficacy of our model by testing if our surface-resistance approach would identify existing conservation tools; for example, the aforementioned Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve planned by Lin et al. [39] is identified in our model as a highquality corridor. Unsurprisingly, the corridor is included in the higher current density area of the ecological network identified in this study. ...
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Humans overlap with Asian elephants, resulting in frequent costly human–elephant conflicts, which disturb and even threaten local residents. In this study, we treat provincial and national nature reserves where Asian elephants still exist and other alternative habitats suitable for Asian elephants in southern Yunnan, China, as ecological patches. By using this approach, we can treat the terrain and surface state factors that hinder the migration of Asian elephants as a form of ecological resistance surface. We can then use a circuit theory model and remote sensing data to construct an ecological network, which allows us to identify ecological corridors and ecological pinch points. Herein, the possible migration routes of wild Asian elephants were identified. The main results are as follows: (1) In the study area, dense forests with steep slopes and high altitudes, cultivated land, and building land have greater migration resistance, while the gently undulating shrubs, bamboo forests, and grasslands far away from the city have less migration resistance. (2) There are three ecological corridor groups in the study area, mainly composed of shrub and grassland. The ecological corridors identified in this paper are the most likely migration routes of wild Asian elephants in China, and areas with higher simulated current densities reflect a higher probability of Asian elephants passing through. (3) According to the analysis, the ecological pinch points in the study area are 602 km2 in total, and woodland and grassland account for 89.2% of the total ecological pinch area. The areas where the pinch points are located have a high probability of Asian elephants passing through and a narrow space. Our findings can provide suggestions and solutions for the current conservation of wild Asian elephant species, alleviate human–elephant conflicts, promote the harmonious coexistence between humans and nature, and provide reference for biological protection and biological reserve planning.
... A total of 200-300 Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) live in the southern region (Xishuangbanna, Puer, and Lincang) of Yunnan Province, China, with over 85% of the individuals found in Xishuangbanna, resulting in the density of elephants in Xishuangbanna being approximately 0.01 individual per km 2 (Chen et al., 2022;Guo et al., 2012;Li et al., 2018;Lin et al., 2008b;Su et al., 2020;Sun et al., 2021;Wang et al., 2019a). The elephant population in Xishuangbanna has increased over the last 40 years (Chen et al., 2016;Li et al., 2018), indicating successful conservation policies. ...
... With increasing human and elephant populations, HEC has been a severe problem in China in the last 20 years . HECs have caused both considerable property damage and human casualties (Chen et al., 2016;Guo et al., 2012;Li et al., 2018;Lin et al., 2008b;Su et al., 2020;Wang et al., 2019a). During 2011-2015, wild elephants resulted in CNY 53.53 million in insurance compensation in Xishuangbanna . ...
... Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve (21 • 10 ′ − 22 • 24 ′ N, 100 • 16 ′ − 101 • 50 ′ E) is made up of five subreserves (Mangao: 78.7 km 2 , Mengyang: 998.40 km 2 , Menglun: 109.33 km 2 , Mengla: 926.83 km 2 and Shangyong: 311.84 km 2 ), which are 'isolated refuge islands' of endangered elephants (Fig. 3) (Lin et al., 2008b). With a total area of 2425.1 km 2 , it protects China's largest and most comprehensive tropical forest and the largest wild elephant population (Fig. 3) (Lin et al., 2008b). ...
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Human–elephant conflicts (HECs) threaten both elephants and humans globally. Many modern techniques have been adopted to mitigate HECs, including remote sensing with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Based on the UAV monitoring data of wild Asian elephants in China, we mapped the potential HEC hotspots and identified the possible related environmental factors. Our results indicated that there were six clusters of UAV-monitored elephant positions, and these corresponded to the previously known elephant subpopulations. According to the local Getis-Ord Gi⁎ statistic, the potential HEC hotspots were mainly distributed around the Mangao subreserve, Jingne Town, Mengman Town and near Mengwang Town. Physical barriers, including large rivers and highways, separated elephant position clusters and potential HEC hotspot areas. Generally, the environmental factors related to high HEC risk tend to be near the traditional elephant rangelands, while the potential HECs were near human settlements. In addition, the potential HEC hotspots were distributed in regions with both lower slopes and lower river cover but higher food-rich covers. There have been few reports on HEC mapping based on UAV monitoring data, and our study may help widen and deepen the application of UAVs in mitigating HECs in China and elsewhere in the future.
... Building ecological corridors by conserving existing landscape linkages or restoring habitat areas to function as connections between larger protected areas in Xishuangbanna is urgently needed. Due to land use change, the expansion of plantations and the human population, much attention had been paid to nature reserve management in this region and considerable progress is being made in conservation corridors in the past few years in Xishuangbanna (Feng & Zhang, 2005a;Lin et al., 2008). However, the anthropogenic factors especially in regards to road construction were underestimated and not all sub-reserves were taken into consideration . ...
... To manage an elephant conservation landscape, it is important to identify which factors influence Asian elephant movement and distribution patterns and how all these variables can be combined to identify areas of suitable habitat (Feng & Zhang, 2005b). Studies have emphasized biological factors as habitat criteria and have also integrated biological and anthropogenic aspects to identify potential habitats (Lin et al., 2014;Lin et al., 2008). Furthermore, previous studies have focused more on population size, habitat status and distribution of Asian elephant in individual sub-reserves (Lin et al., 2014;Zong, Liu, Xu, & Wang, 2014). ...
... It experiences a rainy season between May and October, with frequent and/or constant rainfall. The dry season begins in November and ends the following April with an intense spring drought (Lin et al., 2008). The primary vegetation in the region can be classified into four main types: tropical monsoon forest; tropical seasonal moist forest; tropical rain forest; and, sub-tropical montane evergreen broad-leaved forest. ...
Article
Evaluating road effects on the ecological status and landscape connectivity is critical for animal corridor design. Taking the fragmented nature reserves in Xishuangbanna as a case, road impacts on Asian elephant habitats were determined based on a suitability analysis. Potential corridors between different sub-reserves were located using "least-cost" method as a systematic way incorporating remote sensing (RS) and geographic information system (GIS). Our results revealed that road networks, especially high-level roads (expressway, national road and city-county city road), had the largest effects on the suitability according to the sensitivity analysis. Suitability (> 40) area will increase about 40% if there were no high-level roads. In total, seven potential linkages were located and found to be capable of connecting the habitats of the four sub-reserves. We suggested the Menglun reserve could serve as a stepping-stone for elephant migration. Four further conservation priorities were also identified between the Menglun reserve and the Mengla reserve where the road impacts were intensive. Our study provided information for the development of an efficient reserve network for elephant conservation between existing nature reserves in China and neighboring provinces in Lao PDR.
... However, the focus of risk source assessment is the risk effect of the existing landscape pattern deviating from the optimal model, not a specific and clear disturbance source [24,25]. In addition, the ecologically fragile areas are a research hotspot in existing research fields of landscape ecological risk assessment, such as industrial and mining areas [18], watersheds [6,10,26], nature reserves [15,27], and large cities [9,28,29]. Moreover, spatial autocorrelation analysis can explore the agglomeration law of landscape ecological risk, can effectively help highlight the spatial pattern of ecological risk distribution, and can quickly analyze the high-risk areas that need to be concerned in the study area [30,31]. ...
... Xishuangbanna is approximately 19,150 km 2 , which is adjacent to Laos and Myanmar in the south and southwest, respectively ( Figure 1) [39]. The terrain in the north is high, and in the south is low, and is dominated by hilly mountains, with an elevation between 475 m and 2428 m [27]. The rainy season starts in May and ends in October, and the average annual precipitation is from 1500 mm to 2000 mm [40]. ...
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Xishuangbanna is a major natural rubber and tea production base in China and a national nature reserve with the best-preserved tropical ecosystem. However, the extensive exploitation and use of land resources impact the land use/land cover (LULC) and the processes of regional landscape ecology, further causing a battery of ecological and environmental problems. It is necessary to evaluate landscape ecological risk objectively and quantitatively for improving the ecological environment and maintaining ecological balance. First, this study selected China Land Cover Dataset (CLCD) to analyze the changes in LULC. Second, we constructed the landscape ecological risk index (ERI) using LULC changes based on Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform. Third, the spatial-temporal pattern and spatial autocorrelation of landscape ecological risk were assessed in our study area. The results showed that the significant change in LULC was that the areas of cropland increased, and the areas of forests decreased during 1990–2019; the forests of a total area of 859.93 km2 were transferred to croplands. The landscape ecological risk kept a low and stable level from 1990 to 2019, more than 75% of the study area remained at the lower or lowest risk level, and in about 70% of the total study area, the ERI level maintained stability. In addition, the landscape ecological risk of the Xishuangbanna increased during 1990–2010 and decreased during 2010–2019. The ecological risk was a significant spatial autocorrelation and has been an aggregation trend in space from 1990 to 2019. Our research can identify key risk areas and provide a reference for the management and sustainable use of land resources, which promotes the understanding of landscape ecological risk and sustainable development of the ecological environment.
... Chinese authorities have even started to establish crop fields whose only purpose is to distract elephants from the fields of local residents (Lin et al., 2011;Luo, 2007). To increase the resources available to elephants, corridors connecting fragmented natural areas should be established (Areendran et al., 2011;Lin et al., 2008). For example, a corridor could be established in the northeast of TRY to link it with the Sikiet Waterfall National Park. ...
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The continuing loss and degradation of their natural habitats forces some wildlife species to increasingly extend their habitats into farmlands, thereby intensifying conflicts with people as resources diminish. Despite massive expansion in rubber (Hevea brasiliensis) plantations in recent decades, little is known about the diversity and distribution of wild mammals in rubber‐dominated landscapes or the associated human‐wildlife conflicts. We assessed the presence and diversity of mammalian wildlife and damage occurrence in such rubber landscapes in southern Thailand, in and around Tai Rom Yen National Park. We interviewed 180 farmers about wildlife visits to their farms and the resulting damage. We conducted 50 transect walks within and adjacent to a natural forest and deployed camera traps at the boundary between the plantations and the forest, as well as deeper into the forest, to assess wildlife presence. A total of 35 mammal species were recorded inside the forest. More than 70% of these were also present at the forest boundary, but species presence and diversity were far lower in the farmland. Elephants (Elephas maximus) were responsible for 90% of wildlife damage incidents within the rubber plantations, with 86% of these cases affecting young plants that had not yet been tapped. Although almost half of the survey respondents reported elephants visiting their farms, less than half of them reported damage. These results suggest that rubber‐dominated landscapes surrounding protected areas have the potential to facilitate coexistence between people and certain wildlife species, particularly if young plants are better protected and plantation management is made more wildlife friendly.
... Vegetation types in the study area mainly include tropical seasonal moist forest, tropical monsoon forest, tropical montane evergreen broad-leaved forest, montane rainforest, bamboo forest, shrubland, and grassland (He, Feng, & Yang, 2008). Asian elephants are primarily distributed in or around the four national nature reserves of XSBN: Mengyang, Menglun, Mengla, and Shangyong, from the north to the south Lin et al., 2006). These reserves account for 21% of the total study area. ...
Article
The landscape connectivity of natural habitats serves an important role in the migration and survival of animals. In southwestern China, the rapid decline of the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) population has been attributed to habitat loss and fragmentation due to recent land-use changes. Despite efforts to protect the Asian elephants' habitats, an analysis on the cross-scale landscape connectivity within and among these habitats has rarely been documented. In this study, we focused in Xishuangbanna, China and first identified the key patches for the Asian elephant in Xishuangbanna, China. We then evaluated the landscape connectivity and compared scenarios for eight dispersal distances of the resource patches. Levels of importance for each individual patch were evaluated by calculating the probability of connectivity (dPC) and betweenness centrality (dBC). Results showed that habitats with high suitability occupied 29% of the studied area. The distribution of patch importance levels wasdetermined separately by dPC and dBC, and these two indices corresponded with each other via the con-nector fraction of dPC (dPC connector) index. The final total area of the priority patches was 2478 km 2 , or approximately 76% of the suitable habitat area. Our study indicated that the cross-scale landscape connectivity analysis is an effective approach to characterize the key patches, and the priority patches for Asian elephants can be selected by using both dBC and dPC in Xishuangbanna.
... In the previous Xishuangbanna Nature Reserve planning project, the Shangyong sub-reserve was generally divided into three main functional regions: core area, buffer area, and experimental zone (Lin et al., 2006). Around the world, most nature reserve planning is concentrated entirely on main functional region divisions on a large scale. ...
Article
Lack of landscape connectivity and habitat loss is major threats to biodiversity and ecosystem integrity in nature reserves aimed at conservation. In this study, we used structural pattern and functional con-nectivity metrics to analyze the spatial patterns and landscape connectivity of habitat patches for the Shangyong sub-reserve of the Xishuangbanna Nature Reserve from 1970, 1990, and 2000. On the basis of vegetation and land cover data, we applied the equivalent connected area ECA(PC) indicator to analyze the changes in forest connectivity. Four distance thresholds (2, 4, 8, 12 km) were considered to compare the patch importance of connectivity by dECA values. The results showed the declining trends of landscape connectivity measured by ECA(PC) index from 1970 to 2000. The importance of connectivity in each forest patch varied with the increment of dispersal distances at the patch level, and some important habitat patches, which exhibit a potential to enhance landscape connectivity, should be given more attention. The least-cost pathways based on network structure were displayed under four dispersal distances in three periods. The results showed that the number of paths among the fragments of forest patches exhibited radical increases for larger dispersal distances. Further correlation analyses of AWF, ECA (IIC), and ECA (PC) showed the weakest and least-frequent correlations with the structural pattern indices, while H presented more significant correlations with the PD fragmentation metric. Furthermore, Kendall's rank correlations between the forest patch area and functional connectivity indicators showed that dECA (PC) and dAWF indicators should provided the area-based prioritization of habitat patches. Moreover, the low-rank correlations showed that dF and dLCP can be considered as effective and appropriate indicators for the evaluation of habitat features and network patterns.
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ContextRegional ecological networks play an important role in biodiversity conservation and should be constructed and optimized for continued ecosystem functioning.Objectives Taking a tropical region in Southwest China as the study area, we aimed to propose a new method for constructing ecological networks for Asian elephants affected by human disturbance by focusing on the importance of steppingstones for optimization.Methods Source areas were extracted using a combination of morphological spatial pattern analysis (MSPA) and the importance of patches (PC) index. A network connecting source areas was then constructed using circuit theory. Steppingstones were added near the breaks in corridors to optimize the ecological network.ResultsThe quality of the southern key corridors in the study area has improved since 1990, but few corridors connect the southern with the central and northern regions. Compared with the ecological network in 2015, the average current density more than doubled, and the potential corridor area increased by approximately eight times from 8.07 to 65.05 km2 after optimization. The connectivity between the north and south was apparently enhanced, and the landscape connectivity of the entire region had improved.Conclusions Source areas can be effectively determined through the integrated use of MSPA and the PC index. Our study also confirmed that small steppingstones, which were selected based on the corridor identification results, have a strong impact on improving landscape connectivity. This study provides a method for the selection of source areas and is an important reference for the planning and optimization of ecological networks.Graphic Abstract
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Ecological corridor networks can efficiently improve regional landscape connectivity. Corridors for multiple faunal species movements are receiving increasing attention and graph theory is considered a promising way to explore landscape connectivity. In Xishuangbanna, the circuit theory was applied to explore the corridor networks for biodiversity for the first time. In addition, disturbances caused by the road network and the protection efficiency of National Nature Reserves and planned area for corridors were evaluated. Results indicated that the regional corridor networks could be estimated using a modified circuit method and Zonation model. Spatially, the key corridors were concentrated in the central-western, southeastern and northern regions. We detected 66 main intersections between key corridors and the road buffer. Of these points, 65% are forest, 23% grassland and 12% farmland. More than half of the area of National Nature Reserves constituted the top 50% of the corridors, and the planned corridor areas could efficiently protect some key corridors. However, these reserves only protected about 17% of regional key corridors, and the corridor conservation area in the western and northern regions were absent. The issues addressed in our study aided in the elucidation of the importance of regional landscape connectivity assessments and operational approaches in conservation planning.
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The habitat selection of Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) was studied from August 2003 to August 2004 in Shangyong protected area in Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve, Yunnan, China. Village visiting and transect were used to survey the habitat utilization of Asian elephant. The transects were made about 2 km each through the elephant habitat and data were collected on vegetation type, vegetation aboundance, geography parameters (aspect, slope, location etc.), elevation, population status, frequency of elephant sightings, and other wildlife sighting were recorded. A total of 109 elephant trace points were tracked. 3S (GIS, GPS, RS) technology was used to analyze the data obtained from field surveys and satellite images. Vanderploge and Scavia's selectivity index was used to assess Asian elephant's selection for the different habitat parameters. The results indicated that Asian elephant preferred to select habitat with an altitude less than 1 000 meters, a slope less than 10°, and locations in valleies, with a north and south orientation. The selected habitats were bamboo-evergreen broadleaf mixed forest, shrub and grassland. Asian elephants preferred dense coverage shrub layer and an arbor layer with lower height, dense canopy and small trunk radius. It was also found that the loss of suitable habitat and the illegal hunting for ivory were two major threats the survival of Asian elephants in Shangyong protected area. How to prevent the habitat loss and fragmentation, and how to efficiently control the poaching will be key tasks to the elephant conservation efforts in Xishuangbanna.
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