甘肃白水江国家级自然保护区金猫栖息地预测

The Asiatic golden cat (Catopuma temminckii) is listed as a First Class species in the National Key Protected Wild Animals in China, and assessed as Near Threatened (NT) and Endangered (EN) by IUCN Red List and China Species Red List, respectively. Once widely distributed from East to Southeast Asia, the Asiatic golden cat inhabits diverse habitats ranging from lowland rainforests to montane coniferous forests and subalpine rhododendron forests, whereas its habitat selection preference remains poorly understood. In this research we determined the habitat selection strategy of this species in the montane forest ecosystem in Southwest China. We collected the occurrence data (292 independent detections at 117 sites) of the Asiatic golden cat through camera-trapping surveys from 2016 − 2019 in Baishuijiang National Nature Reserve in Gansu Province, and constructed a MaxEnt model with 7 environmental variables (altitude, aspect, slope, distance to river, land use type, distance to road, distance to residents) to predict its suitable habitats in the reserve. The results showed that the suitable habitats were estimated as 1 045. 90 km² in the reserve, yet separated into the northern and southern parts by natural and anthropocentric barriers including the Bailongjiang River, 212 National Highway and the residential area along the low valley. The model response curves showed that the Asiatic golden cat prefers the evergreen coniferous forests close to rivers, at an elevation of around 2 400 m. The results indicated that, the wide river and anthropogenic impacts (e. g. roads) are possibly key factors driving the fragmentation status of the Asiatic golden cat’s habitat at the landscape scale. Future studies shall further examine the impacts of different types of human disturbance on Asiatic golden cats, and explore their basic ecology including diet composition, activity rhythm, population status and dynamics by integrating multiple methods.