Historical data as a baseline for conservation: reconstructing long-term faunal extinction dynamics in Late Imperial-modern China.

ABSTRACT: Extinction events typically represent extended processes of decline that cannot be reconstructed using short-term studies. Long-term archives are necessary to determine past baselines and the extent of human-caused biodiversity change, but the capacity of historical datasets to provide predictive power for conservation must be assessed within a robust analytical framework. Local Chinese gazetteers represent a more than 400-year country-level dataset containing abundant information on past environmental conditions and include extensive records of gibbons, which have a restricted present-day distribution but formerly occurred across much of China. Gibbons show pre-twentieth century range contraction, with significant fragmentation by the mid-eighteenth century and population loss escalating

SUBMITTER: Turvey ST 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4632630 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature