An assessment of endangered species habitat at large scale: chiru distribution across the Tibetan region of Chang Tang

Title:

An assessment of endangered species habitat at large scale: chiru distribution across the Tibetan region of Chang Tang

Creator:

Feng, Feifei, Yang, Zhisong, Owens, Jacob Robert, Hou, Rong, Zhang, Zhihe, and Qi, Dunwu

Identifier:

https://cdk.lib.cas.cz/client/handle/uuid:4705fbc6-c9ce-4072-b970-0ab07722ca7e
uuid:4705fbc6-c9ce-4072-b970-0ab07722ca7e

Subject:

Pantholops hodgsonii, habitat assessment, species distribution, and habitat suitability

Type:

article, model:article, and TEXT

Description:

Habitat degradation is a major threat to the survival of chiru (Pantholops hodgsonii). Detailed knowledge for habitat conservation in this steppe-dwelling ungulate is needed if effective conservation and management strategies are to be developed. The distribution of potential habitat and the relative value of habitat to chiru on a regional scale remains unknown, hindering landscape conservation planning. Our aim was to identify and rank chiru habitat across the Chang Tang region of the Tibetan Plateau. We assessed overall habitat suitability using geographical data, field surveys, and information contained within previous studies. We identified 10194 km2 of optimal habitat (1.71 % of the region), 256816 km2 of suitable habitat (43.17 % of the region), and 213799 km2 of marginal habitat (35.94 % of the region). Our habitat model shows that suitable habitat is located primarily in the central (Nyingma county and Shuanghu county) and western (Geze county) regions of the study area. When we looked specifically at a chiru reserve (Chang Tang Nature Reserve) located within the study area, we found that over half of the reserve could be classified as suitable habitat. This highlights the regional importance of this reserve to chiru conservation. Our findings further indicate that the protection of suitable habitat and improvement of habitat linkages will be important features of any regional chiru conservation plan.

Language:

English

Rights:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
policy:public

Source:

Folia zoologica | 2016 Volume:65 | Number:1

Harvested from:

CDK

Metadata only:

false