Population viability of the Siberian Tiger in a changing landscape: Going, going and gone?

The Amur Tiger, also known as the Siberian Tiger, is the biggest cat species in the world and is facing threats of extinction. The population in Northeastern China and Eastern Russia has dwindled from 3000 to less than 600. The current habitat consists of one large patch in Russia along with several small isolated ones in China that function together as a megapopulation. The major causes of this decline in population are due to poaching, habitat degredation, habitat loss, and habitat fragmentation. Habitat fragmentation has been caused by logging and clear cutting forests, human settelment and roads, and agriculture. In order to simulate the above effects and see how they effect megapopulation dynamics and the risk of extinction, as well as which conservation efforts are most useful, a population vaibility analysis was performed. The article included a good definition of population viability analysis, which they defined as, a model-based method that evaluates the extinction risk of endangered species during a specified time period. The analysis tested for the effectiveness of three conservation plans. The first was to improve habitat quality of existing patches. The second was to establish corridors, and the third was to create a transnational network/protection zone. All conservation plans included enforcing laws against poaching of the Siberian Tiger and their prey. The analysis used a model of 15 patches representing the one large, some small, and some very isolated small patches. The hypothetical experiment found that improving only habitat quality resulted in no benefits except slightly in the singular large patch, and corridors alone also led to local extinctions. Megapopulation dynamics and the longterm persistence of the speices was only helped by increasing the quality and connectedness with the transnational network conservation plan. Two other interesting things in the article I found were that the small reserves in China did not contribute to the megapopulation because they only served as population sinks. Therefore this is a case where adding more habitat patches can actually be detrimental. Also, the habitat of the Siberian Tiger is in the Korean pine braod leaved forest, which is the most biologically diverse at that latitude, and so preserving tigers, also preserves othe endemic speices.

POSTED BY: MAGGIE JENKINS

link: http://p8888-ucelinks.cdlib.org.proxy.library.ucsb.edu:2048/sfx_local?genre=article&issn=03043800&title=Ecological+Modelling&volume=222&issue=17&date=20110910&atitle=Population+viability+of+the+Siberian+Tiger+in+a+changing+landscape%3a+Going%2c+going+and+gone%3f&spage=3166&sid=EBSCO:egh&pid=
Source:
Title:
Population viability of the Siberian Tiger in a changing landscape: Going, going and gone?
Source:
Ecological modelling [0304-3800] (2011) volume: 222 issue: 17 page: 3166