Impact of land use and climate change on potential suitable habitats of snow leopards(Panthera uncia)in Qinghai Province
[Objective]The aim of this study is to simulate suitable habitat changes of snow leopards(Panthera uncia)under land use change before and after Natural Forest Protection Project(NFPP)and different climate scenarios,which has practical significance for rare animal conservation in alpine mountains.[Method]Total 22 environmental variables that might have an impact on the distribution of snow leopards were selected and the land use data in 2000 and 2020 were used to represent the changes in land use type before and after the implementation of NFPP.The maximum entropy model(MaxEnt)was used to simulate the distribution change of suitable habitats for snow leopards,and the potential suitable habitats for snow leopards in 2050 under two climate scenarios,namely RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5,were simulated.[Result]Before the implementation of NFPP,the high suitable area of snow leopards in Qinghai Province was 117 900 km2,the medium suitable area was 119 600 km2,and the low suitable area was 229 600 km2.The total suitability distribution area was 467 100 km2(accounting for 64.7％of the study area).After the implementation of NFPP,the high,medium,and low suitable areas of snow leopards were 117 800,117 700 and 241 400 km2,respectively,and the total suitable area increased to 476 900 km2(accounting for 66.0％of the study area).The simulation results of future scenarios showed that by 2050,the suitable habitat of snow leopards in Qinghai Province would generally show a trend of contraction and agglomeration,with a certain degree of decrease in the areas of high,medium and low suitable habitats compared with 2020.Among them,the medium suitable habitats would decrease by 1 400 and 7 200 km2 under RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 scenarios,respectively,while the high and medium suitable habitat area would decrease by 3 200 and 4 900 km2,respectively.[Conclusion]The land use changed from 2000 to 2020,with a slight increase in the suitable habitat for snow leopards,inferring that NFPP has not led to the expansion of sirable habitat for snow leopards.A future warming climate will have a negative impact on the suitable habitat for snow leopards.Therefore,forestry management departments should strengthen monitoring of snow leopard activities and develop conservation strategies in advance for endangered wildlife such as snow leopards under climate change.[Ch,3 tab.42 ref.]
species distributionclimate changerare animalsPanthera uncialand useMaxEnt
万方数据
维普
