Identifyinq Priority Conservation Areas And Optimizing The Protected Areas Based On National Protected Wild Plants And Animals In Yunnan,China

Identifying priority conservation areas (PCAs) and allocating conservation resources to the regions with highest conservation value is one of the most cost-effective ways to optimize in-situ protected areas network. Yunnan province, with the most abundant terrestrial species and unique species in China, and is one of the biodiversity hotspots in the world. Although a comprehensive protected areas network has been established in Yunnan, with nature reserves being the core approach, several key protected species and hotspots was not covered by current protected areas network. Besides, increasing human disturbances induce further pressures to biodiversity protection in Yunnan Province. Considering the conservation gap and pressures, it is urgent to identify PCAs to improve and optimize the protected area network in Yunnan.With national key protected wild plants, animals and coupled plants and animals as surrogates and protection objects, this study identified PCAs at county level in Yunnan Province. Three types of Priority Conservation Counties were identified at 75% and 100% conservation levels based on Dobson algorithm. Through assessing the protection efficiencies of the identified PCCs, I identified the Optimal Priority Conservation Counties (OPCCs) which are of highest protection efficiencies. Priority Conservation Habitats (PCHs) were identified from the OPCCs with environmental information. Finally, I compared the indentified PCAs and the spatial distribution and area of existing nature reserves, to analysis the conservation gaps in Yunnan province, and explored potential approaches to optimize the protected areas network and nature reserves.The key findings were as follows:(1) The species diversity distribution patterns are obviously different between the National Protected Wild Plants and the National Protected Wild Animals in Yunnan province. The protected plants mainly distributed in the southeastern area; while the protected animals more concentrated in western area. Regarding the coupled animal-plant species richness, the regions with high protected species richness mainly located in the national border belt along northwest-western-southwestern-south and southwest of Yunnan, in and the central plateau of Yunnan, as well as Ailao Mountains.(2) The PCCs indentified based plant species (Plant Priority Counties, PPCs) covered more total species (both plant and animals) than that based on animal species(Animal Priority Counties, APCs), but they were not substitutable. Compared with PPCs, APCs and Merged PPC and APCs Priority Counties (MPCs), the Plant and animal Priority Counties (PAPCs) which identified coupled protected plants and animals as surrogates had higher protection efficiency than PPCs, APCs and MPCs.(3) The OPCCs of Yunnan was the PAPCs at the 100% conservation level, which consisted of 34 Priority County Units (PCUs). Their distribution could well represent the spatial characterize of biodiversity in Yunnan, and spatially congruent with the distribution of the biodiversity hotspots and priority conservation areas previously identified at global-, national-and provincial-level(4) Based on environmental information (landuse type, vegetation type, slope, etc.), this study identified PCHs from each OPCCs units, by excluding environment units with high human disturbances. The average area ratio of PCHs OPPCs was 25.99%, but difference in each OPCCs units.(5) There were obvious conservation gaps in existing nature reserve networks to cover the conservation priority areas or hotspots indentified by the government or other researches, or to cover the optimal priority counties identified in this study. Four OPCCs units identified by this study were not covered by existing nature reserves, and ten OPCCs units were covered by nature reserves with coverage lower than 5%.These 14 priority units should be the focus in future protected areas network optimization.(6) The macro-distribution pattern of the OPCCs could be conceptualized into three connected belts:the C-shaped border belt (CBB), the central transition belt (CTB) extending from northeastern Yunnan to southwestern Yunnan, and the central linking belt (CLB) forming a corridor between the CTB and the southeastern part of the CBB. They provided a valuable reference for optimizing the macro pattern of in-situ protected areas network in Yunnan, and the construction of nature reserves in CTB and CLB belts need to be further improved.(7) Based on the result of conservation gaps and the analysis of human disturbance, this study set two scenarios to identified 11 OPCCs units, and provided a model to optimize in-situ protected areas network through landscape pattern analysis.In conclusion, this study recognized that coupled protected plants and animals as surrogates yielded a higher surrogacy value in the identification of PCAs; combining biodiversity, environmental information and biogeographic units to identify PCAs is an important development direction in optimization of regional in-situ protected areas. Optimization of regional protected areas network requires optimization at both macro and meso-scale, with a top-down approach to connect the two scales.