Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Tao Ruan, Han Han, Wei Wei, Lan Qiu, Mingshen Hong, Junfeng Tang, Hong Zhou, Zejun Zhang
Summary: The Liziping National Nature Reserve in the Xiaoxiangling Mountain of Sichuan Province is a critical habitat for giant pandas, with the suitable habitat mainly concentrated in the east of the reserve. Factors such as road interference, temperature, altitude, and slope gradient greatly influence the distribution of giant pandas, with wild pandas preferring areas far from human interference, high altitude, moderate temperature, and gentle slopes. These findings provide valuable insights for scientists to formulate habitat conservation and management measures for giant pandas in the reserve.
GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Yu Xu, Biao Yang, Qiang Dai, Han Pan, Xue Zhong, Jianghong Ran, Xuyu Yang, Xiaodong Gu, Zhisong Yang, Dunwu Qi, Rong Hou, Zejun Zhang
Summary: This study evaluates the management of giant panda populations in China and proposes suggestions for landscape-scale conservation in the national park system.
Article
Biology
Wei Jia, Shasha Yan, Qingqing He, Ping Li, Mingxia Fu, Jiang Zhou
Summary: The recovery of vegetation within the Niba Mountain giant panda corridor has led to the emergence of giant panda activity in the area, which may have spread to the central part of the reserve through the corridor. The study clarified the habitat selection characteristics of giant pandas in the corridor by investigating the microhabitats of the giant panda corridor in Niba Mountain. These findings can provide a reference for scientists to formulate practical habitat conservation and management measures for giant pandas in the study area.
Article
Agriculture, Dairy & Animal Science
Xiaoyu Chen, Xiaorong Wang, Junqing Li, Dongwei Kang
Summary: The study evaluated the habitat suitability of giant pandas in Wanglang Nature Reserve, finding that only 16.33% of the area was suitable for giant pandas, with extensive overlap between the suitable habitats of livestock and takin having a significant impact on pandas.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Wei Zhou, Bin Zheng, Zi-qiang Zhang, Zhen-jiang Song, Wei Duan
Summary: The study found that income from community-based ecotourism can significantly promote the conservation behavior of local households, especially in forest maintenance and protection activities. However, there is no significant impact on reforestation activities.
JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
(2021)
Article
Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence
Le Wang, Rizhi Ding, Yuanhao Zhai, Qilin Zhang, Wei Tang, Nanning Zheng, Gang Hua
Summary: The lack of automatic tools to identify giant pandas makes it difficult to manage them in wildlife conservation missions. In this paper, a new Giant Panda Identification (GPID) task is introduced, along with a benchmark dataset iPanda-50. The proposed Feature-Fusion Network with Patch Detector (FFN-PD) significantly outperforms existing methods, demonstrating its effectiveness in identifying individual giant pandas based on images.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON IMAGE PROCESSING
(2021)
Article
Forestry
Zhenjiang Song, Yi Li
Summary: The study found that the area of non-forested land in giant panda habitats decreased, with high-quality land-use types decreasing while low/middle-quality types increased. Chinese giant panda conservation projects have not only promoted changes in conservation thought and management, but also emphasize the balance between conservation and development, aiming to promote the coexistence of humans and giant pandas.
Article
Ecology
Hongliang Bu, William J. McShea, Dajun Wang, Fang Wang, Youping Chen, Xiaodong Gu, Lin Yu, Shiwei Jiang, Fahui Zhang, Sheng Li
Summary: The downlisting of the giant panda from Endangered to Vulnerable in the IUCN Red List highlights the effectiveness of current conservation practices, but its future survival is still threatened by habitat fragmentation and climate change. Maintaining movement corridors between habitat patches in the newly established Giant Panda National Park is crucial for the species' long-term sustainability. The study found that current distribution of plantations has not harmed connectivity between core habitat patches, but mass conversion could severely degrade it. Recommendations include no expansion of plantations inside the GPNP and enhancing collective forest management for ecological forest expansion in adjoining habitat patches.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Guozhen Shen, Tianyuan Lan, Shuyu Deng, Yue Wang, Wenting Xu, Zongqiang Xie
Summary: Biodiversity and climate are interconnected through carbon, and the loss of biodiversity and climate change reinforce each other. Efforts to conserve flagship and umbrella species, such as the giant panda, have effectively prevented their extinction but have been less effective in maintaining biodiversity and high-carbon ecosystems. Habitat fragmentation, which is negatively correlated with giant panda density, species richness, and total carbon density, poses a threat to giant panda habitats and could lead to additional carbon emissions. It is urgent for China to develop an effective national park system that integrates climate change issues into biodiversity strategies to address the dual environmental challenges of biodiversity loss and climate change.
SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT
(2023)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Junfeng Tang, Jian Zhang, Xuzhe Zhao, Wei Wei, Mingsheng Hong, Hong Zhou, Jindong Zhang, Zejun Zhang
Summary: This study assessed the vulnerability of giant panda and its sympatric mammal species in Sichuan province, China, using climate niche factor analysis. The results showed that species sensitivity plays a greater role than habitat exposure in determining vulnerability. Additionally, mammals at lower altitudes or latitudes were found to be more vulnerable to climate change, with Daxiangling and Liangshan mountains being the most vulnerable areas. The current protected area network only covers a small percentage of the most vulnerable areas.
BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Ossi Nokelainen, Nicholas E. Scott-Samuel, Yonggang Nie, Fuwen Wei, Tim Caro
Summary: The black-and-white coloration of giant pandas provides camouflage in their natural environment, with black fur blending into dark shades and white fur matching foliage and snow. The results are consistent across different vision models, showing that the coloration is an adaptation for background matching and distance-dependent disruptive coloration.
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2021)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Pranjal Swarup, Peng Chen, Rong Hou, Pinjia Que, Peng Liu, Adams Wai Kin Kong
Summary: Monitoring giant panda behavior is crucial for conservation, but traditional methods are difficult and prone to errors. A new automated recognition method based on Faster R-CNN and modified ResNet was proposed, achieving high accuracy in detecting panda behaviors and facial motions in captivity.
GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION
(2021)
Article
Ecology
Yan Zhigang, Buddhi Dayananda, Igor Popovic, Wang Xueli, Kang Dongwei, Zhang Yubo, Sheng Guozhen
Summary: The disturbance of wildlife habitats by human activities is a significant factor in the ecological landscape evolution. A study was conducted to analyze the temporal and spatial dynamics of human disturbances affecting panda populations, using information entropy and statistical methods. The results showed that farming, tourism, logging, and road infrastructure were the key factors impacting panda habitats. The impact of logging and shoot gathering has decreased over time, with road infrastructure emerging as the leading disturbance factor. These findings will contribute to the preservation of threatened panda populations and future research on habitat disturbance.
ECOLOGICAL INFORMATICS
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Wen Chen, Bochuan Zheng, Jindong Zhang, Liming Xu, Jin Hou, Vanessa Hull
Summary: Individual recognition of animals through infrared camera trapping surveys is a vital method for protecting and monitoring wildlife. However, current survey methods have limitations in accuracy and data processing time. New technologies and methods for individual recognition have been developed for rare species, but obtaining an adequate sample size of wildlife images from the field is challenging.
ECOLOGICAL INFORMATICS
(2023)
Review
Agriculture, Dairy & Animal Science
Yue Wang, Wei Wei, Feiyun Yuan, Dandan Cao, Zejun Zhang
Summary: This paper reviews the scientific progress in conservation translocation of pandas, emphasizing the importance of selecting suitable release sites and individuals, conducting pre-release training and post-release monitoring, and utilizing adaptive management to improve the success rate of panda conservation translocation programs.
Article
Zoology
Hongmin Zhu, Biao Yang, Ke He, Jing Qing, Zejun Zhang, Kan Zhang, Bo Tang, Zhisong Yang, Qiang Dai, Xiaodong Gu, Xuyu Yang, Yan Huang, Desheng Li, Hemin Zhang
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Biao Yang, Siyu Qin, Wansu Xu, Jonah Busch, Xuyu Yang, Xiaodong Gu, Zhisong Yang, Bin Wang, Qiang Dai, Yu Xu
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Bowei Zhu, Bin Wang, Boyan Zou, Yu Xu, Biao Yang, Nan Yang, Jianghong Ran
GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION
(2020)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Yu Xu, Bin Wang, Xue Zhong, Biao Yang, Jindong Zhang, Cheng Zhao, Xingcheng He, Jianguo Li, Jianghong Ran, Caiquan Zhou
GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION
(2020)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Yu Xu, Bin Wang, Xiaodong Gu, Dazhao Song, Biao Yang
Summary: The eastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau is a global biodiversity hotspot threatened by habitat degradation. This study used camera traps to survey large and medium-sized mammals in the region and found a diverse community of species, including several globally threatened ones. Grey wolves and leopards were identified as dominant predators, while woolly hares were the most frequently photographed prey.
Editorial Material
Biology
Li Zhang, Biao Yang, Neil Cox
SCIENCE CHINA-LIFE SCIENCES
(2021)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Minxia Fu, Han Pan, Xinqiang Song, Qiang Dai, Dunwu Qi, Jianghong Ran, Rong Hou, Xuyu Yang, Xiaodong Gu, Biao Yang, Yu Xu, Zejun Zhang
Summary: This study examined the habitat selection of giant pandas in southwestern China over the past two decades and found that they consistently selected south- and west-facing slopes with mid-elevations and large trees. However, there were shifts in their choice of higher and lower elevations and bamboo cover across the three stages.
JOURNAL FOR NATURE CONSERVATION
(2022)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Yu Xu, Megan Price, Biao Yang, Kai Zhang, Nan Yang, Xiaoxin Tang, Jianghong Ran, Yin Yi, Bin Wang
Summary: China enacted programs to protect and expand forests, and the designation of national forest reserves since 1990 has had a positive impact on forest cover and fragmentation. However, there is still room for improvement to ensure better protection of forests.
JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Yu Xu, Biao Yang, Qiang Dai, Han Pan, Xue Zhong, Jianghong Ran, Xuyu Yang, Xiaodong Gu, Zhisong Yang, Dunwu Qi, Rong Hou, Zejun Zhang
Summary: This study evaluates the management of giant panda populations in China and proposes suggestions for landscape-scale conservation in the national park system.
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Bin Wang, Weijia Ye, Yu Xu, Xue Zhong, Jindong Zhang, Nan Yang, Biao Yang, Caiquan Zhou
Summary: Comprehensive biodiversity protection requires consideration of multiple diversity indexes and the distribution patterns under climate change. This study identified priority areas for conserving Galliformes taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional diversity in China and assessed their spatial dynamics under climate change. The results showed that current protected areas were incongruent with priority areas, and future priority areas will shift, depending on climate change scenarios.
DIVERSITY AND DISTRIBUTIONS
(2023)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Bin Wang, Xue Zhong, Yu Xu, Yuehong Cheng, Jianghong Ran, Jindong Zhang, Nan Yang, Biao Yang, Caiquan Zhou
Summary: Informed zoning of protected areas is crucial for their success, but the conventional strategy of designing them based on flagship species alone is often ineffective. Using China's Giant Panda National Park as an example, this study evaluated the effectiveness of integrating multiple conservation parameters to optimize zoning designations for flagship and sympatric endangered species without compromising the protection of giant pandas. Through a stepwise spatial prioritization, the study found that species richness was a weak indicator of conservation values, and recommended modifying the current zoning designation criteria to better protect a broader range of species alongside giant pandas.
BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION
(2023)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Song Lu, Ying Yue, Yihong Wang, Dawei Zhang, Biao Yang, Zhen Yu, Honghui Lin, Qiang Dai
Summary: Roads act as barriers and disrupt habitat connectivity for wildlife. This study examined the utilization of bridges and culverts as wildlife passages and found that traffic, landscape, human disturbance, and bridge and culvert structures all had effects on wildlife utilization. The results indicate that bridges and culverts are less successful in attracting wildlife compared to other areas, especially for large-sized species. Human activities and traffic volume negatively impact medium-sized wildlife utilization of bridges and culverts. Retrofitting measures such as noise and light barriers and vegetation restoration are necessary to enhance the efficacy of bridges and culverts in Giant Panda National Park.
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Yihong Wang, Chengcheng Zhang, Lan Qiu, Biao Yang, Qiang Dai
Summary: Climate change, habitat loss, and human disturbance are key threats to biodiversity. Protecting habitats and establishing an effective system of protected areas (PAs) are crucial for conservation. This study developed a framework based on administrative divisions to assess the current PA network in China for medium and large-sized mammals. Results show that the current protected patch size is inadequate, especially for large carnivores and threatened species. This framework can guide conservation measures and habitat restoration efforts.
GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY
(2023)
Editorial Material
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Biao Yang, Qiang Dai, Yu Xu, Christina D. Buesching, Xiaodong Gu, Zhisong Yang, Zejun Zhang, Fuwen Wei
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Chengcheng Zhang, Juan Li, Biao Yang, Qiang Dai
Summary: This study presents habCluster, a raster-based geographical boundary delineation method, which uses community detection algorithms to identify highly connected nodes in a habitat network. The method was tested on gray wolf and giant panda habitats, and the results showed that the boundaries delineated by habCluster can serve as indicators of habitat patches, providing a spatial analysis basis for conservation management plans and population structure research.
FRONTIERS IN CONSERVATION SCIENCE
(2022)
