Habitat association and conservation implications of endangered Francois' langur (Trachypithecus francoisi).

Yajie Zeng,Jiliang Xu,Chunfa Zhou,Yong Wang,Cédric Sueur

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0075661

Abstract

Francois’ langur (Trachypithecus francoisi) is an endangered primate and endemic to the limestone forests of the tropical and subtropical zone of northern Vietnam and South-west China with a population of about 2,000 individuals. Conservation efforts are hampered by limited knowledge of habitat preference in its main distribution area. We surveyed the distribution of Francois’ langur and modeled the relationship between the probability of use and habitat features in Mayanghe National Nature Reserve, Guizhou, China. The main objectives of this study were to provide quantitative information on habitat preference, estimating the availability of suitable habitat, and providing management guidelines for the effective conservation of this species. By comparing 92 used locations with habitat available in the reserve, we found that Francois’ langur was mainly distributed along valleys and proportionally, used bamboo forests and mixed conifer-broadleaf forests more than their availability, whereas they tended to avoid shrubby areas and coniferous forests. The langur tended to occur at sites with lower elevation, steeper slope, higher tree canopy density, and a close distance to roads and water. The habitat occupancy probability was best modeled by vegetation type, vegetation coverage, elevation, slope degree, distances to nearest water, paved road, and farmland edge. The suitable habitat in this reserve concentrated in valleys and accounted for about 25% of the total reserve area. Our results showed that Francois’ langur was not only restricted at the landscapes level at the regions with karst topography, limestone cliffs, and caves, but it also showed habitat preference at the local scale. Therefore, the protection and restoration of the langur preferred habitats such as mixed conifer-broadleaf forests are important and urgent for the conservation of this declining species.

Highlights

Effective management of wildlife populations to conserve threatened species or promote biodiversity generally entails habitat management based on the understanding of species’ needs [1]
This species has been extirpated from five of its original distribution areas in Guizhou, and has become restricted to only five isolated sites [5]. This species is listed as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, and as a first-grade protected species under wildlife laws in China, little is known about its habitat use and factors affecting habitat selection or association except for some sleeping site selection and feeding habitat use
We considered the model with the highest wi as the best model [24] and used the area under curve (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC), Table 2

Summary

Introduction

Effective management of wildlife populations to conserve threatened species or promote biodiversity generally entails habitat management based on the understanding of species’ needs [1]. Many wildlife species such as primates are threatened by human activities such as urban sprawl and resource exploitation, which lead to deforestation, forest fragmentation, and habitat loss [2]. Due to forest loss, some populations have been locally extirpated from some parts of their historical ranges [11] This species has been extirpated from five of its original distribution areas in Guizhou, and has become restricted to only five isolated sites [5]. This species is listed as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, and as a first-grade protected species under wildlife laws in China, little is known about its habitat use and factors affecting habitat selection or association except for some sleeping site selection and feeding habitat use (see [6,12])

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion