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      Changes in the spatial and temporal pattern of natural forest cover on Hainan Island from the 1950s to the 2010s: implications for natural forest conservation and management

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          Abstract

          The study of the past, present, and future state and dynamics of the tropical natural forest cover (NFC) might help to better understand the pattern of deforestation and fragmentation as well as the influence of social and natural processes. The obtained information will support the development of effective conservation policies and strategies. In the present study, we used historical data of the road network, topography, and climatic productivity to reconstruct NFC maps of Hainan Island, China, from the 1950s to the 2010s, using the random forest algorithm. We investigated the spatial and temporal patterns of NFC change from the 1950s to the 2010s and found that it was highly dynamic in both space and time. Our data showed that grid cells with low NFC were more vulnerable to NFC decrease, suggesting that conservation actions regarding natural forests need to focus on regions with low NFC and high ecological value. We also identified the hot spots of NFC change, which provides insights into the dynamic changes of natural forests over time.

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          Most cited references66

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          Proximate Causes and Underlying Driving Forces of Tropical Deforestation

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            Landscape modification and habitat fragmentation: a synthesis

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              Modelling conservation in the Amazon basin.

              Expansion of the cattle and soy industries in the Amazon basin has increased deforestation rates and will soon push all-weather highways into the region's core. In the face of this growing pressure, a comprehensive conservation strategy for the Amazon basin should protect its watersheds, the full range of species and ecosystem diversity, and the stability of regional climates. Here we report that protected areas in the Amazon basin--the central feature of prevailing conservation approaches--are an important but insufficient component of this strategy, based on policy-sensitive simulations of future deforestation. By 2050, current trends in agricultural expansion will eliminate a total of 40% of Amazon forests, including at least two-thirds of the forest cover of six major watersheds and 12 ecoregions, releasing 32 +/- 8 Pg of carbon to the atmosphere. One-quarter of the 382 mammalian species examined will lose more than 40% of the forest within their Amazon ranges. Although an expanded and enforced network of protected areas could avoid as much as one-third of this projected forest loss, conservation on private lands is also essential. Expanding market pressures for sound land management and prevention of forest clearing on lands unsuitable for agriculture are critical ingredients of a strategy for comprehensive conservation.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Journal
                PeerJ
                PeerJ
                peerj
                peerj
                PeerJ
                PeerJ Inc. (San Francisco, USA )
                2167-8359
                16 May 2017
                2017
                : 5
                : e3320
                Affiliations
                [-1]School of Life Science, South China Normal University , Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
                Article
                3320
                10.7717/peerj.3320
                5436588
                28533968
                fd63de96-e255-47b6-966e-cce15af5b19a
                ©2017 Lin et al.

                This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.

                History
                : 18 November 2016
                : 15 April 2017
                Funding
                The authors received no funding for this work.
                Categories
                Biodiversity
                Conservation Biology
                Ecology
                Environmental Sciences

                natural forest cover,dynamic change,hainan island,forest fragmentation,conservation strategies

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