Identification of hotspots for biodiversity conservation in the Wenchuan earthquake-hit area

The Wenchuan earthquake-hit area is located in the Upper Yangtze River,which is the main distribution area of Giant panda(Ailuropoda melanoleuca) in China,and is one of the twenty-five hotspots for biodiversity conservation throughout the world defined by Conservation International,providing some important ecological service functions such as biological diversity conservation,water conservation,soil conservation and so on.Meanwhile,it plays an important role in ensuring regional ecological security.However,the eco-environment suffered from severe destruction in the Wenchuan 5.12 earthquake.In order to protect biological diversity in the Wenchuan earthquake-hit area,it is necessary for us to identify the hotspots for biodiversity conservation,which is of vital realistic significance for the government to devote efforts to reconstruction and is beneficial to optimum resource allocation.Firstly,we calculated the integrated biodiversity index and analyzed the spatial distribution of biodiversity,and then applied the index to determine the biodiversity hotspots by spatial analysis.The hotspots established by the spatial correlation method generally are consistent with the conservation priority area based on the Marxan model.The hotspots account for 76% of the existing nature reserve and the hotspots in Nature Reserve account for 55% of all existing Nature Reserves in the Wenchuan earthquake-hit area,and the total habitat area of all indicator species in the hotspots accounts for about 70% of the whole earthquake-hit area.The verification showed that the spatial correlation method is a reasonable method which can be applied to establishing hotspots.Furthermore,we also found that the spatial correlation analysis method of identifying hotspots is able to overcome the deficiency that the priority area based on the Marxan model is too discrete and islanding.Moreover,the results also showed that there are two biodiversity hotspots,i.e.,the Minshan region and southern Qionglai mountain region.Maoxian Country lies at the junction of the two hotspots in the Wenchuan earthquake-hit area,so it is recommended to set aside a certain natural area as an ecological corridor between these two biodiversity hotspots.The biodiversity hotspots identified by the spatial correlation method can provide the decision-making basis for biodiversity conservation and depressing the influence on biodiversity in the processes of restoration and reconstruction in the Wenchuan earthquake-hit area.