| With the rapid growth of population, changes in the global environment and the impact of socio-economic activities on the natural world, wildlife habitats and ecosystems have been severely damaged, resulting in a sharp decline of many numbers of rare wild animals and even on the verge of extinction. Rhinopithecus roxellanae, a rare and endemic species in China under the first rate national protection, which belongs to Primates, Monkeys Branch, Snub-nosed Monkey Species has great value in research and protection. The habitat of Shennongjia Rhinopithecus roxellanae has been seriously damaged and highly fragmented due to various reasons, leading to difficulties in genetic exchanging among exsiting populations. A variety of random factors beyond the control of human pose a threat to the survival of the species, the species is still not out of danger of extinction. Therefore, there is an urgent need to study the Rhinopithecus roxellanae habitat characteristics, identify suitable habitat, raise landscape management optimization measures, which is important for the protection of Rhinopithecus roxellanae population.According to literature and the long-term monitoring data by Shennongjia Nature Reserve, combined with its geographical landscape and natural conditions, this paper chose16kinds of habitat factors as the field survey recorded factors in July to September2013. Eight kinds of critical factors(distance to road, elevation, distance to water, canopy density, the average height of trees, food abundance, aspect, shrubs coverage) which affect the habitat selection of Rhinopithecus roxellanae were selected through multivariate statistical analysis and stepwise discriminant function analysis, the accuracy of the discriminant function reached95.2%.Using resource selection functions and exponential to analyze the eight kinds of key limiting factors, Rhinopithecus roxellanae’s preference on different levels of each factor habitats were identified. The results showed that:Rhinopithecus roxellanae mainly prefers the habitat with altitude of1600-2600m, semi-shady slope, canopy density at0.7-0.9, the average height of trees10-20m, shrub cover at0.5-0.8, high food abundance, distance to road more than1000m, distance to water500-1000m.Combining the topographic data, DEM data, secondary forest inventory data provided by the Shennongjia Nature Reserve with field survey data, the Rhinopithecus roxellanae habitat suitability was assessed through ArcGIS technology platform. The main results are as follows:Rhinopithecus roxellanae suitable habitat area is10675ha, accounting for17.28%of the total area; the medium suitable habitat area is7443ha, accounting for12.05%of the total area; unsuitable habitat area is43653ha, accounting for70.67%of the study area; available habitat (suitable habitat and medium suitable habitat) area is18118ha, accounting for29.33%of the study area.The overlay analysis of ArcGIS was used in this paper to generate the Rhinopithecus roxellanae habitat protection vacancy in Shennongjia region by ovelaying the topographic maps of Shennongjia National Nature Reserve, the map of Rhinopithecus roxellanae activities range in Shennongjia and the map of habitat suitability evaluation. Analyzing the habitat protection vacancy region of Rhinopithecus roxellanae in Shennongjia. The main results are as follows:In Shennongjia Nature Reserve, the South Gate, monkey stone, Dongjiawan, Tiansheng bridge are four large discrete areas of protection vacancies. These areas are basically at the junction of each protection station, where is the so-called " blind spot", so the protection effort is limited. Only two Rhinopithecus roxellanae protected sites were specially established, and they were set up a short time ago. The protection sites mainly concentrated in the eastern study area, so these available habitats were not covered and thus became protection vacancies. The problems of protection vacancy in these areas can be improved through the construction of habitat corridors, rational planning of road and facilities, establishment of special protection sites and strengthening of publicity and education.The range of Rhinopithecus roxellanae activities includes most areas in Shennongjia Nature Reserve as well as the Yuantouzhai and the Shizhuzipo area in Fang County, Moon rocks and Tianshengya in Badong County. These two regions are outside of Shennongjia Nature Reserve and they are the boundaries of their administrative areas, so these areas are difficult to protect and in the situation of protection vacancy. As for the problems of protection vacancies, these areas can be considered included in the administration of Shennongjia Nature Reserve so as to strengthen the protection of Rhinopithecus roxellanae in these areas. |
