Spatial Distribution Prediction, Protected Area Coverage and Hotspot Analysis of Terrestrial Protected Mammals in Taiwan

• Main Authors: Szu-Yi Wang, 王思懿
• Other Authors: Pei-Fen Lee
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/20738720280885478070

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 生態學與演化生物學研究所 === 102 === Spatial distributions of flora and fauna are critical information for research and conservation. When studying distribution of rare, enigmatic, sparsely recorded or broadly distributed species, researchers can model their potential habitats with species distribution modeling techniques. Species distribution modeling can depict the potential habitat distribution of species by analyzing their occurrence records and environmental variables of study area. To date, these techniques have been applied to various biological and geographic research. Most protected mammals in Taiwan are of high-level consumers in the food chain, threatened by human activity and habitat destruction. However, research on distribution of protected mammals in Taiwan has so far been incomplete. There is also a lack of further application of the distribution information. In this study, I collected observations of 11 protected mammal species between 1988 and 2013, and modeled the potential distribution of each species with three distribution modeling techniques namely maximum entropy, genetic algorithm for rule-set production and ecological niche factor analysis. The resulted habitat suitability map of each species was obtained by ensembling the outputs of three species distribution models. In order to conquer the data defects caused by uneven sampling, two thresholds were selected, translating the habitat suitability maps into boldly predicted and conservatively predicted presence–absence maps respectively. For further analysis, I calculated protected area coverage of each species and compared the distribution of protected mammal hotspots with protected areas, evaluating the effectiveness of protected areas in Taiwan. The results showed that the protected area coverage varies between species, with Cervus unicolor swinhoei, Martes flavigula chrysospila and Naemorhedus swinhoei higher than 50%; and Prionailurus bengalensis chinensis and Paguma larvata taivana lower than 20%. Considering the average protected area coverage of all 11 protected mammals, is 38.9% when boldly predicted; and 43.7% when conservatively predicted. Moreover, 41.7% of boldly predicted protected mammal hotspots are covered by protected areas; 53.7% of conservatively predicted protected mammal hotspots are covered by protected areas. The elevation of protected mammal hotspots is slightly lower than protected areas. I recommend enhancing the protection of low to medium altitude species, such as designating habitat of low to medium altitude species as protected areas or restricting lowland forest exploitation.