The expansion of agriculture is posited as one of the main dynamics of forest landscape change globally, and the robust modeling of these processes is important for policy as well as academic concern. This paper concerns a relatively small area of Yiluo River catchment where considerable attention has been paid to slow down the process of the expansion of agriculture into the remaining natural forests. In the present study, we reconstructed the former forest landscape structure and elucidated the landscape change during a period of about 15 years. Three sets (1987, 1996 and 2002) of maps derived from Landsat-5 images were used for analyses. The result showed that there was a decrease in the area of the forest landscape from 995.60 km 2 in 1987 to 650.50 km 2 in 2002. Then we examined the degree to which forest landscape conversion could be attributed to a set of factors identified as significant at broader scales, namely topography, distribution of the village clusters (centroids), distance from villages (centroids), and distance from forest edge (1987). By using "spatial analysis" in Arc/gis 8.3, the correlation between forest landscape change and driving factors was constructed. This study found that forest landscape conversion in this region was largely explained by elevation, slope and proximity to village.
The development of modern agriculture has resulted in much homogenization of the landscape consisting of large patches of farmland, so small remnant non-crop habitats especially linear corridors play an important role in the conservation of species and the maintenance of ecosystem functions. However, little attention has been paid to the effects of corridors structural characteristics on the plant species restricted to such habitats. In this study, we selected three types of corridors including ditch, hedgerow and road, and analyzed their structural characteristics. The plant species presented in these corridors were investigated, and the species diversity, abundance and frequency were estimated. Moreover, spatial arrangements of corridors were classified into different types to discuss whether there were significant effects of corridor network on plant distribution. The results show that three types of corridors have different effects on plant species composition and diversity. The one-one combined corridor networks and total network associated by three corridors have more complex structural features than each single type of corridor. However, there is no strong correlation between the corridor networks with their plant species. We suggest that carrying out a pointed vegetation survey at corridor intersections to further test the relationships between structural features of corridor and plants is necessary.
North China leopard (Panthera pardus japonensis) is the most widespread subspecies of leopard and one of the rare and endangered species in China. It is currently confined to several isolated natural reserves, and little is known about its habitat network connectivity with land use changes. This study was conducted to assess the impacts of land use changes on landscape connectivity for North China leopard in the Great Taihang Region. Circuit theory-based connectivity models and least-cost path analyses were used to delineate pathways suitable for species movement, and evaluate the impacts of land use changes on landscape connectivity. The results revealed that there were 37 least-cost paths in 1990 and 38 in 2020. The area of forest land increased from 57,142.74 km 2 to 74,836.64 km 2 , with the percentage increasing from 26.61% to 34.85%. In general, the increase in forest land area promoted the landscape connectivity for North China leopard at broad spatial scales. The improvement of landscape connectivity was not always consistent with the land use changes, and there was a slightly decreasing trend on connectivity in some key movement barrier areas with high intensity of human activities. Improving landscape connectivity at broad spatial scales is as important as protecting the habitats (natural reserves) where the species lives. Our study can serve as an example of exploring the relationships between land use changes and landscape connectivity for species conservation at broad spatial scales with limited movement pattern data. This information is proved to be critical for enhancing landscape connectivity for the conservation concern of North China leopard and planning of natural reserves network.
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