Abstract
Aim: North China leopard (Panthera pardus japonensis ),
is the most widespread subspecies of leopard and one of the rare and
endangered species in China. It is currently confined to several
isolated reserves, and little is known about its habitat network
connectivity with land use changes. We proposed an approach for the
evaluation of the impacts of land use changes on landscape connectivity
for North China leopard.
Location: The Great Taihang Region, in the north of China,
covers the entire territory of Shanxi province, as well as some
districts and counties in Beijing, Hebei and Henan provinces.
Methods: We analysed multiple background layers affecting North
China leopard movement patterns, including environmental and
anthropogenic factors, and generated a landscape resistance surface.
Then we used Circuit theory-based connectivity models to delineate
pathways suitable for species movement, and evaluate the connectivity
status of core areas and the impacts of land use changes on landscape
connectivity.
Results: We identified 33 least cos distance paths in 1990 and
34 paths in 2020, and four key barrier areas. The landscape connectivity
has not been greatly improved with the land use changes, especially with
the increase of forest land from 26.61 to 34.85%. Nevertheless, there
is a decreasing trend on connectivity in some key movement barrier
areas. Improving landscape connectivity at a broad spatial scale is as
important as protecting the habitats (natural reserves) where the
species lived.
Main conclusions: Our study can serve as an example of how to
explore the relationships between land use changes and landscape
connectivity for species at broad spatial scales with limited movement
patterns data. This information is proved to be critical for enhancing
landscape connectivity for conservation concern of North China leopard
and planning of natural reserves network.