Setting priority conservation areas of wild Tibetan gazelle (Procapra picticaudata) in China's first national park

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The Tibetan gazelle (Procapra picticaudata) is a threatened ungulate of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau of China, with a rapidly decreasing number of wild populations. Evaluating their habitat is a key step toward the development of animal population management and conservation plans. Moreover, the Sanjiangyuan National Park (SNP), which is China's first national park, is vital for the protection of the wild Tibetan gazelle with respect to both phylogenetic resources and conservation efforts. However, the specific distribution, quantity, and living status of the Tibetan gazelle still lacks scientific and accurate data. This study used the line transect method to conduct terrestrial wildlife surveys in the SNP and recorded 674 occurrences for the Tibetan gazelle from 2016 to 2017. We utilized the maximum entropy (MaxEnt) model and habitat suitability index (HSI) model, combined with principal component analysis (PCA), to evaluate the relationship between habitat selection of the Tibetan gazelle and environmental variables, and to predict priority conservation areas for the Tibetan gazelle in the SNP were predicted. Eight environmental variables were selected for both MaxEnt and HSI models. MaxEnt indicated that altitude, mean diurnal temperature range, mean temperature of the coldest quarter, and isothermality were the four most important variables associated with the distribution of the Tibetan gazelle (contributing a total of 86.2%). Both models indicated that the priority conservation areas of the Tibetan gazelle in the SNP were about 86,308.25–90,267.34 km2, which accounts for 70.11–73.33% of the SNP. This mainly included most of the Yellow River Park, the central and southwestern part of the Mekong River Park, and the eastern part of the Yangtze River Park. The Yangtze River Park had the largest total priority conservation area, while the Yellow River Park had the highest proportion of priority conservation areas. These results aid the protection of the Tibetan gazelle and other threatened wildlife distributed in the same area, and also provide theoretical support for the selection of potential habitats for the Tibetan gazelle in the SNP.