# Presentation: 279040

## Forest Structure and Distribution across the Geographic Range of the Giant PandaUp-scaling from Plots to the Entire Region 

**Jianguo (Jack) Liu (Michigan State University)**
**Zhiyun Ouyang (Chinese Academy of Sciences)**
**Jiaguo Qi (Michigan State University)**
**Andrés Viña (Michigan State University)**

## Giant Panda’s Geographic Range

**Historical Range**

**Current Range**

**Giant Panda’s Geographic Range**

## Giant Panda Habitat

- Altitudinal range between 1200-3800 m
- <45o slopes
- Require forest cover (deciduous & coniferous)
- >95% of diet is composed of bamboo

## Remote Sensing for Panda Habitat Assessment

- Limited to provide information on **forest cover **(usually through non-hierarchical spectral classification algorithms)
- Understory bamboo cover has been neglected due to the difficulty in isolating it from forest canopy

## Objectives

- Assess the spatial distribution of forests
- Evaluate the structural characteristics of the forests at plot scales
- Develop techniques for up-scaling from plots to nature reserves, mountain regions and to the entire panda geographic range

## Field Data

- 440 sampling plots:
- Forest cover/type
- Elevation, slope, aspect
- Tree/bamboo stem density & basal area
- Tree/bamboo species composition
- 84 plots exhibited panda signs

## Forest Cover & Panda Habitat

**Forest Cover & Panda Habitat**

**Landsat TM + SRTM-DEM**

## Conservation Plans at Regional Scales

- Xu,* et al.* 2006. *Diversity and Distributions *12: 610-619.

- Establishment of key (K) areas to locate new nature reserves and linkage (L) areas to connect different nature reserves

**Qionglai Mountain Region**

## What about information on bamboo distribution ?

_**Hypothesis**_: Forests with bamboo have particular phenological signatures that can be used to map their distribution across broad geographic regions.

## Panda Habitat Distribution

**Panda Habitat Distribution**

**MODIS Data (250 m / pixel)**

- Viña *et al.* 2008. *Remote Sensing of Environment* 112: 2160-2169.

**Wolong Nature Reserve**

## Suite of Surrogates of Canopy Characteristics

***f*****APAR**
**Viña & Gitelson. 2005. *****Geophys. Res. Lett.****** **** *

**Percent Canopy Cover**
**Gitelson et al. 2002. *****Remote Sens. Environ.***

**Chlorophyll Content & Green LAI**
**Gitelson et al. 2005. *****Geophys. Res. Lett.***

**Canopy Moisture**
**Hunt & Rock. 1989. *****Remote Sens. Environ.***

## Panda Habitat Distribution

**Panda Habitat Distribution**

**Current Geographic Range**

## Analyses at Species Level

**Chao-Sorensen Floristic Similarity Index (Chao et al. 2005. Ecol. Lett.)**

**Qinling Mountain Region**

## Phenologic Similarity

- Principal Coordinates of phenologic similarity (1- euclidean distance)

**MODIS Data (500 m / pixel)**

## Conclusions

- Forests are a very conspicuous land cover type (40-50%)
- Areas that are habitat for the giant pandas represent ~25% of the forest areas
- Some species associations can be isolated and mapped using their characteristic phenological signatures

## Next Steps

- Continue collecting field and remotely sensed data in all the mountain regions comprising the giant panda geographic range
- Perform time series analyses in the entire geographic range to evaluate phenological traits (using high temporal resolution MODIS data) that can be related with different species associations
- Evaluate relationships between local spatial heterogeneity and species richness using intermediate (e.g., Landsat) and high spatial resolution data (e.g., IKONOS)

## Acknowledgements

- NASA – Terrestrial Ecology and Biodiversity Program
- NASA – Land Cover/Land Use Change Program
- National Science Foundation
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Global Land Cover Facility, University of Maryland