Socioeconomic development shows positive links to the conservation efficiency of China's protected area network.

While the protected area (PA) covers >15% of the planet's terrestrial land area and continues to expand, factors determining its effectiveness in conserving endangered species are being debated. We investigated the links between direct anthropogenic pressures, socioeconomic settings, and the coverage of vertebrate taxa by China's PA network, and indicated that high socioeconomic status and low levels of human pressure correlate with high species coverage, with threatened mammals more effectively conserved than reptiles or amphibians. Positive links between conservation outcomes and socioeconomic progress appear linked to local livelihood improvements triggering positive perceptions of local PAs-aided further by ecological compensation and tourism schemes introduced in wealthy areas and reinforced by continued positive conservation outcomes. Socioeconomic development of China's less developed regions might assist regional PA efficiency and achievement of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, while also addressing potential shortcomings from an insufficient past focus on socioeconomic impacts for biodiversity conservation.

Global patterns of nonanalogous climates in the past and future derived from thermal and hydraulic factors.

Nonanalogous climates (NACs), climates without modern analogs on Earth, challenge our understanding of eco-evolutionary processes that shape global biodiversity, particularly because of their propensity to promote novel ecosystems. However, NAC studies are generally inadequate and partial. Specifically, systematic comparisons between the future and the past are generally lacking, and hydraulic NACs tend to be underemphasized. In the present study, by adopting a frequency distribution-based method that facilitates the procedures of contributions parsing and conducting multiple comparisons, we provide a global overview of multidimensional NACs for both the past and the future within a unified framework. We show that NACs are globally prevalent, covering roughly half of the land area across the time-periods under investigation, and have a high degree of spatial structure. Patterns of NACs differ dramatically between the past and the future. Hydraulic NACs are more complex both in spatial patterns and in major contributions of variables than are thermal NACs. However, hydraulic NACs are more predictable than originally thought. Generally, hydraulic NACs in the future (2100 AD) exhibit comparable predictability to thermal NACs in the last glacial maximum (LGM) (21k BP). Identifying these NAC patterns has potential implications on climate-adaptive managements and preparing in advance to possibly frequent novel ecosystems. However, a learning-from-the-past strategy might be of limited utility for management under present circumstances.

Difference of habitat suitability and the influencing variables between winter and summer of Procapra picticaudata in the Three-River-Source region, China.

Procapra picticaudata is an ungulate endemic to the Tibetan Plateau and is widely distributed in the Three-River-Source region. Predicting the seasonal variations in habitat suitability and understanding the effects of environmental variables on habitat use by this species will help formulate effective conservation strategies and clarify its niche characteristics. Based on point records of the occurrence collected during repeated field surveys in winter (January 2019) and summer (August 2019), we used MaxEnt model to predict the differences in habitat suitability and the distribution pattern of the P. picticaudata in the Three-River-Source region using eight preselected environmental variables. We further explored the influence of those variables on the P. picticaudata' distribution pattern using environmental response curves. The results showed that the average area under the receiving operator curve values in winter and summer was 0.901±0.023 and 0.882±0.024, respectively, with a good accuracy of fitness. The total area of suitable habitat for P. picticaudata in winter and summer was 6.83×104 and 9.78×104 km2, respectively. The area of suitable habitats in summer increased significantly compared with winter. There was a tendency for P. picticaudata to spread to the south of the Yangtze River Source Park and the Yellow River Source Park in summer. The spatial patterns of habitat suitability in both winter and summer took Three-River-Source National Park as the high-value center and decreased around it. The seasonal average temperature, altitude, population density, and slope were the main environmental variables affecting the distribution of P. picticaudata both in winter and summer. The higher temperatures in summer allowed the suitable P. picticaudata habitats to extend into areas above 5000 m in altitude, and to areas with slopes of less than 25°, compared with winter. The expansion of human activities in summer encroached on the suitable habitat of P. picticaudata.

The Tibetan Antelope Population Depends on Lakes on the Tibetan Plateau.

The influence of freshwater ecosystems on terrestrial taxa in high-altitude regions with challenging access, such as the Tibetan Plateau, remains inadequately understood. This knowledge gap is particularly significant due to the fragility of these ecosystems, characterized by low primary productivity. Ungulates, in particular, may exhibit high sensitivity to even minor alterations in plant availability, potentially stemming from global climate change. Consequently, the investigation of these ecosystems may offer valuable insights into addressing future challenges posed by climate change. Here, to fill this knowledge gap, we explore the relationship between lakes and Tibetan antelopes in an even more vulnerable region, the Tibetan Plateau. We found that the Tibetan antelope population was higher in areas with larger lakes, and where the terrain near the lakes was flatter. At the same time, vegetation cover and plant diversity were higher near the lake compared to areas farther away from the lake. This phenomenon can be elucidated by the fact that lakes offer Tibetan antelopes a richer food supply and reduced predation risk. Our study provides new perspectives for researchers to explore the cross-ecosystem impacts of climate change.

Ecologically asynchronous agricultural practice erodes sustainability of the Loess Plateau of China.

Sustainability of agricultural landscapes depends largely on land-use practices. As one of the most productive and widespread agricultural soils, loess is often deep and easily eroded, posing grand challenges for environmental sustainability around the world. One prime example is the Loess Plateau of China, which has been cultivated for more than 7500 years. Based on long-term data sets, this study demonstrates that the dominant agricultural practice, winter wheat cropping, continues to be the primary driver for the massive soil erosion and landscape modifications on the Loess Plateau. This traditional farming system is asynchronous with the dynamic rhythm between natural vegetation and climate in the region. In particular, the long summer fallow period for winter wheat fields is concurrent with the heavy-rainstorm season, which greatly accelerates soil erosion. Our finding indicates that common land-use practices that have lasted for thousands of years in China are not environmentally sustainable. Agriculture in this region has relied primarily on the continuous "mining" of the soil for the past several thousand years but does not have a one-thousand-year future because of myriad environmental and socioeconomic factors associated with soil erosion. To contain soil erosion and promote sustainability on the Loess Plateau, therefore, a change in the agricultural regime is needed to make sure that current and future agricultural practices follow the vegetation-climate rhythm. In addition, to achieve environmental, economic, and social sustainability in this region, multifunctional land-use planning is required to increase landscape diversity and functions (e.g., proper arrangement of crop fields, orchards, and protected areas).

A new tool for exploring climate change induced range shifts of conifer species in China.

It is inevitable that tree species will undergo considerable range shifts in response to anthropogenic induced climate change, even in the near future. Species Distribution Models (SDMs) are valuable tools in exploring general temporal trends and spatial patterns of potential range shifts. Understanding projections to future climate for tree species will facilitate policy making in forestry. Comparative studies for a large number of tree species require the availability of suitable and standardized indices. A crucial limitation when deriving such indices is the threshold problem in defining ranges, which has made interspecies comparison problematic until now. Here we propose a set of threshold-free indices, which measure range explosion (I), overlapping (O), and range center movement in three dimensions (Dx, Dy, Dz), based on fuzzy set theory (Fuzzy Set based Potential Range Shift Index, F-PRS Index). A graphical tool (PRS_Chart) was developed to visualize these indices. This technique was then applied to 46 Pinaceae species that are widely distributed and partly common in China. The spatial patterns of the modeling results were then statistically tested for significance. Results showed that range overlap was generally low; no trends in range size changes and longitudinal movements could be found, but northward and poleward movement trends were highly significant. Although range shifts seemed to exhibit huge interspecies variation, they were very consistent for certain climate change scenarios. Comparing the IPCC scenarios, we found that scenario A1B would lead to a larger extent of range shifts (less overlapping and more latitudinal movement) than the A2 and the B1 scenarios. It is expected that the newly developed standardized indices and the respective graphical tool will facilitate studies on PRS's for other tree species groups that are important in forestry as well, and thus support climate adaptive forest management.

[Applications of camera trap in wildlife population ecology].

Population parameter estimation and spatial distribution pattern are the main issues in animal ecology and conservation biology. In recent decades, camera trap as a non-invasive technique in field survey has been widely used in wildlife ecology and conservation research, and showed its great superiority under the conditions of traditional survey methods difficult to achieve. The animal presence data collected by camera trap can provide extremely valuable quantitative information on wildlife populations. In this review, the operational principles of camera trap were introduced to provide an intuitive understanding of this technique, and then, the applications of this technique in two main fields of population ecology, i. e. , population density and abundance estimation and spatial occupancy estimation for the species with or without natural unique individual markings, were discussed, with special attention to the logic of development, assumptions, limits in application, challenges, and future directions of model development. Finally, the important aspects which should be kept in mind when using camera trap in estimating wildlife population parameters as well as the potential capacities of camera trap in the researches of population dynamics and biodiversity, were comprehensively analyzed.

Quantifying species' range shifts in relation to climate change: a case study of Abies spp. in China.

Predicting species range shifts in response to climatic change is a central aspect of global change studies. An ever growing number of species have been modeled using a variety of species distribution models (SDMs). However, quantitative studies of the characteristics of range shifts are rare, predictions of range changes are hard to interpret, analyze and summarize, and comparisons between the various models are difficult to make when the number of species modeled is large. Maxent was used to model the distribution of 12 Abies spp. in China under current and possible future climate conditions. Two fuzzy set defined indices, range increment index (I) and range overlapping index (O), were used to quantify range shifts of the chosen species. Correlation analyses were used to test the relationships between these indices and species distribution characteristics. Our results show that Abies spp. range increments (I) were highly correlated with longitude, latitude, and mean roughness of their current distributions. Species overlapping (O) was moderately, or not, correlated with these parameters. Neither range increments nor overlapping showed any correlation with species prevalence. These fuzzy sets defined indices provide ideal measures of species range shifts because they are stable and threshold-free. They are reliable indices that allow large numbers of species to be described, modeled, and compared on a variety of taxonomic levels.

[Methods and applications of population viability analysis (PVA): a review].

With the accelerating human consumption of natural resources, the problems associated with endangered species caused by habitat loss and fragmentation have become greater and more urgent than ever. Conceptually associated with the theories of island biogeography, population viability analysis (PVA) has been one of the most important approaches in studying and protecting endangered species, and this methodology has occupied a central place in conservation biology and ecology in the past several decades. PVA has been widely used and proven effective in many cases, but its predictive ability and accuracy are still in question. Also, its application needs expand. To overcome some of the problems, we believe that PVA needs to incorporate some principles and methods from other fields, particularly landscape ecology and sustainability science. Integrating landscape pattern and socioeconomic factors into PVA will make the approach theoretically more comprehensive and practically more useful. Here, we reviewed the history, basic conception, research methods, and modeling applications and their accuracies of PVA, and proposed the perspective in this field.

[Land use pattern and its dynamic changes in Amur tiger distribution region].

Land use and land cover change has been the primary cause for the habitat loss and fragmentation in the distribution region of Amur tiger (Panthera tigris altaica). Based on the spatiotemporal changes of land use and land cover in the distribution region, as well as their effects on the population dynamics of Amur tiger, this paper analyzed the development process and its characteristics of the main land use types (agricultural land, forest land, and construction land) in this region, with the land use change history being divided chronically into three distinctive periods, i.e., ancient times (prior to 1860), modern times (1860-1949), and contemporary times (after 1949). The results showed that the sporadic land use in ancient times had no significant effects on the survival of Amur tiger, while the extensive and intensive land use after the 1860s was mainly responsible for the decrease of Amur tiger population and its living space. Since 1949, the Amur tiger distribution region has been divided into two parts, i.e., Northeast China and Russia Far East. The differences in land use pattern, policy, and intensity between these two parts led to different survival status of Amur tiger. The key driving forces for the land use change in Amur tiger distribution region were human population increase, policy change, and increased productivity.