Affiliation:
1. College of Forestry, Southwest Forestry University, Kunming 650224, China
2. Jiangcheng County Forestry and Grassland Bureau, Pu’er 665900, China
3. Asian Elephants Research Center, State Forestry and Grassland Administration, Kunming 650224, China
Abstract
In recent years, the northward migration of elephant herds in China’s Yunnan Province has attracted unprecedented public attention to the conservation of Asian elephants, with habitat fragmentation and human disturbance thought to be key factors. In this study, we used Jiangcheng, a new distribution site for Asian elephants in southwest China, as an example, combined the available remote sensing and monitoring data with the MaxEnt3.4.1 model, to analyze the factors affecting the activities of Asian elephants under the conditions of human disturbance and habitat degradation. The Least Cumulative Resistance model was utilized to construct the potential ecological dispersal corridors, and the key corridors were identified through the gravity model to explore the ecological security pattern of the habitat of Asian elephants in Jiangcheng County. The results show that the habitat of Asian elephants in Jiangcheng County is fragmented, showing a north–south strip distribution, never moving to the northeast. The existing suitable habitat is located in the low-elevation area (<1500 m), which is close to water sources and roads, and there is no nature reserve in this area. The land is mainly occupied by scrub or grassland near mountainous forests, but part of it is also under cultivation, which leads to conflicts between humans and elephants occur frequently. There are 14 ecological source areas, which are mainly distributed in the two regions of Zhengdong and Kangping, and there are 92 ecological corridors, of which 3 are important corridors and 89 are general corridors. This study comprehensively analyzes the current status and connectivity of Asian elephant habitat in Jiangcheng County at the regional scale, which helps to optimize the pattern of suitable habitat, promotes the dispersal of Asian elephants and habitat connectivity, and provides realistic guidance and basic information for the conservation planning of isolated populations of this species and their habitats.
Funder
National Natural Science Foundation of China’s “Multi-frequency SAR polarized interferometric data for forest tree height inversion” project
the Major Science and Technology Special Project of Yunnan Provincial Science and Technology Department’s “Forest Resources Digital Development and Application in Yunnan” project
Yunnan Province Agricultural Basic Research Joint Special Project”Estimation of aboveground biomass of Simao pinus forest based on multi-source remote sensing data”
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