Design Of Potential Ecological Corridors Of Amur Tiger(Panthera Tigris Altaica) In The Northeastern China

Amur tiger(Panthera tigris altaica)is the largest body size of the five remaining tiger subspecies,which is the flagship species and umbrella species in global biodiversity conservation,and plays the irreplaceable important position in maintaining a healthy ecosystem function.In recent decades,the protection of tiger faces enormous challenges,mainly because the distribution of Amur tiger suffered strong interference and hence,leading to further habitat fragmentation,insularization of tiger's main geographic range,disruption of natural corridors.Therefore,development and restoration of ecological corridor is signality in the potential habitat of Amur tiger.In our research,through the expert model combining habitat selection rules and habitat features,we synthetically analysed 7 main parameters,including the vegetation types,the distribution of national and provincial natural reserves,terrain factors and human disturbance factors,which determined the Amur tiger's core distribution and the synthetical cost value among the distribution area through Analytic Hierarchy Process(AHP)and the weighted linear equation.Our result showed the core habitat area of Amur tiger is 111416 km2,it occupied 42.3 % in the whole area.The main distribution area of Laoyeling is 19978 km2(18%);the distribution area of Wandashan is 10341 km2;the distribution area of Lesser Kinghan mountain is 36672 km2,which occupied the most area.In our results,we identified 21 potential ecological corridors of Amur tiger through corridor design model(linkage mapper)among the core habitats,which was significant for getting through migration channels among the sporadic distribution areas and expanding their living space.We have investigated every ecological corridors in the wild research from July to November,and we used remote sensing data Landsat 8 to interpret the type of land cover by ENVI 5.2 in order to evaluate the Amur tiger ecological corridors.And we've evaluated every resistant factors of each single corridor,and every least-cost paths through corridors for the tiger migration.The result of this research benefits connecting areas of Amur tiger sporadic distribution inside China,especially migration channels between Zhangguangcailing-Wandashan-Laoyeling,which has practical significance for expanding living space for this species.