Assessing the impact of climate change on the habitat distribution of the giant panda in the Qinling Mountains of China

Fan, Jun; Li, Junsheng; Xia, Rui; Hu, Lile; Wu, Xiaopu; Guo, Li

doi:10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2013.11.023

Cited by 90 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…In the Qin Ling, the climate change would reduce the extent of a suitable habitat for giant pandas by up to 62%, and the minimum elevation of panda habitat would rise by 500 m (Fan et al, 2014). Other recent studies of the entire giant panda distribution area showed that 53-71% of the current habitats would be lost under the climate scenarios.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Climate change challenges the current conservation strategy for the giant panda

Shen

Pimm

Feng

et al. 2015

Biological Conservation

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a b s t r a c tThe global total of protected areas to conserve biodiversity is increasing steadily, while numerous studies show that they are broadly effective. That said, how will current conservation strategies work, given the current and expected changes to the global climate? The giant panda is a conservation icon and exceptional efforts protect its remaining habitats. It provides a unique case study to address this question. There are many studies on the projected loss of habitats as climate warms, but few consider the geographical arrangement of future habitats, current protected area, and species' dispersal abilities. Most alarmingly, we expect much greater habitat fragmentation after climate change. Here, we combine long-term data on giant pandas with climate-change scenarios to predict future habitat loss and distribution in the Min Shan of Sichuan and Gansu, China. We employ metapopulation capacity as a mechanistic measure of a species' response to habitat fragmentation. The results show that climate changes will lead to 16.3 ± 1.4 (%) losses of giant panda habitats. Alarmingly, 11.4% of the remaining habitat fragments would be smaller than the extinction threshold area as the extent of fragmentation increases nearly fourfold. The projected fragmentation of giant panda habitats predicts 9% lower effectiveness inside the protected area network compared with that outside of reserves. A 35% reduction will occur in future effectiveness of reserve networks. The results challenge the long-term effectiveness of protected areas in protecting the species' persistence. They indicate a need for integrating both natural processes and dynamic threats over a simple reliance on individual static natural reserves.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Climate change challenges the current conservation strategy for the giant panda

Shen

Pimm

Feng

et al. 2015

Biological Conservation

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show abstract

“…We also incorporated the potential impact of human disturbance into our giant panda model, as human disturbance is known to intensify the negative impacts of climate change through habitat loss and fragmentation (Fan et al, 2014). The level of human disturbance was estimated based on habitat distance from residential areas and roads.…”

Section: Study Area and Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nevertheless, the population is thought to be vulnerable to the increasingly warmer and drier climate that is expected to occur in this century (Liu et al, 2004;Wang et al, 2010). Climate change may reduce significantly both the area of giant panda habitats (Songer et al, 2012;Fan et al, 2014) and food supplies (Tuanmu et al, 2013) in panda reserves, jeopardizing their effectiveness to safeguard giant panda populations in the future.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate change threatens giant panda protection in the 21st century

Wong

et al. 2015

Biological Conservation

109

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a b s t r a c tIt is increasingly recognized that biotic interactions could play a significant role in species distribution modelling. To assess the conservation effectiveness of the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) reserves in a changing climate, we combined both biotic variables (food availability) and abiotic (climatic and geographic) to project the potential changes of distribution and quality of giant panda habitats using the most recent IPCC-CMIP5 climate scenarios. Our results suggested that climate change would adversely affect giant pandas through habitat degradation, in that: (1) 52.9-71.3% of the current habitats could be lost; (2) the giant panda habitats could become more fragmented and isolated; and (3) both the quantity and quality of habitats in the current giant panda reserves could substantially contract, and approximately 20% of the reserves could lose all habitat representations in this century. Additionally, we found that climate change would make it increasingly necessary to translocate small populations of pandas from the southwestern to the northwestern part of the current distribution range to ensure population viability. Our results suggest the need for immediate change in current conservation policies and formulating adaptation plans for giant panda conservation in a changing climate.

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“…Human destruction to the bamboo forests is one of the major causes of the drastic reduction in the number and distribution of giant pandas in the past decades (Liu et al, 2001;Loucks et al, 2001;Shen et al, 2008;Ran et al, 2009). Understanding how climate change will affect these bamboo communities that provide food sources is extremely critical for developing effective conservation strategies in future (Fan et al, 2014). Bamboo are colonial species that mainly reproduce asexually by growing new shoots out of their rhizomes; thus, their dispersal ability is extremely poor, of no more than 6 m per year (Fan, 1999).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate change‐induced decline in bamboo habitats and species diversity: implications for giant panda conservation

Wong

et al. 2014

Diversity and Distributions

101

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Aim Conservation strategies must anticipate how climate change may alter the geographic distributions of limited food resources for highly specialized species. Here, we use bamboo as a case study to investigate climate change-induced changes in species diversity and discuss how to protect the critical food species for giant pandas.Location Giant panda habitats.Methods Using a niche-based model and the most updated climate projections, we projected the current and future distribution of 16 bamboo species under no and universal dispersal assumptions. We then assessed the impact of climate change on bamboo forests and their alpha and beta diversities in the giant panda habitats and reserves.Results Under both dispersal assumptions and three RCPs, six bamboo species are projected to vanish from panda habitats as climate change progresses, resulting in a great loss of the current bamboo forests. Although about half of the bamboo species may potentially colonize new climatically suitable areas under universal dispersal, the other species would experience significant habitat loss. Consequently, climate change would reduce both the alpha and beta diversity of bamboo species in panda habitats. Meanwhile, the proportion of single-species bamboo forests would significantly increase. The decline in bamboo forests and diversity would be most drastic in Qinling, Daxiangling and Qionglaishan Mountains, whereas those in the north-west of Minshan Mountains and Liangshan Mountains may increase.Main conclusions Climate change-induced decline in bamboo habitats and species diversity would pose a severe challenge to the food availability of giant pandas. We posit that human-assisted adaptation and increasing bamboo species diversity are critical to ensuring food security of the giant panda in a changing climate. Our results indicate that conservation planning should not only incorporate species range shifts but also diversity patterns in communities under climate change.

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Assessing the impact of climate change on the habitat distribution of the giant panda in the Qinling Mountains of China

Cited by 90 publications

References 19 publications

Climate change challenges the current conservation strategy for the giant panda

Climate change challenges the current conservation strategy for the giant panda

Climate change threatens giant panda protection in the 21st century

Climate change‐induced decline in bamboo habitats and species diversity: implications for giant panda conservation

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