Representativeness of threatened terrestrial vertebrates in nature reserves in China

Abstract

Habitat degradation and loss threaten the survival of many species, especially vertebrates. The establishment of nature reserves is an efficient approach to protect biodiversity. However, fulfilling conservation targets depends largely on the effectiveness of these nature reserves in capturing the targeted species. In this study, we developed a distribution database of threatened terrestrial vertebrates in China, then explored the patterns of the threatened terrestrial vertebrates and evaluated the effectiveness of current nature reserves in terms of their conservation, further identified the conservation priorities for these species in China. We found 452 threatened terrestrial vertebrates widely distributed across China, especially in mountainous and forested regions in southern China. The current nature reserve network is inadequate to capture the threatened vertebrate species. The nature reserves were found to cover 30.47% of the hotspots and 38.65% of the ranges of these species on average, with quite a few conservation hotspot and species gaps. We further propose to either systematically plan and fix current nature reserves or add new protected areas in Yunnan Province and mountainous regions in southeast China.