Mountains of Southwest China

Mountains of Southwest China

By: Danielle Hooper

Environment Description

Location

Environment

Description

• Wide range of climate conditions, due to the complexity of it's topography (elevation levels).
• Cluster of distinctive mini hotspots.
• Temperatures range from areas that are frost-free throughout the year in parts of Yunna, and frost-free periods in the northern boundary.
• There are permanent glaciers on the high mountain peaks of Sichuan, Yunna, and Xizang.

Location

Environment Description

Environment Description

• Climate and topographic conditions result in a variety of vegetation types across the hotspot including broad leafed coniferous forests, bamboo groves, scrub communities, savanna, meadow, prairie, freshwater wetlands, and alpine scrub and scree communities.

• Stretches over 262,400 km2 of temperate to alpine mountains between the easternmost edge of the Tibetan Plateau and the Central Chinese Plain. (Southwest China)
• It lies north of the Indo-Burma Hotspot, and to the east of the Himalaya Hotspot.
• Bounded in the northwest by the Tibetan Plateau, in the north by the Tao River, and in the east by the Sichuan Basin and the plateau of eastern Yunna.

• Annual avg. rainfall in regions on the southwestern slopes at higher altitudes (Yunna) exceeds 1,000 millimeters.
• Areas in the northwestern areas of the mountains, in the rainshadow of the Tibetan Plateau, rarely receive 400millimeters annually.

• Many of Asia's most species-rich temperate and tropical river systems originate in the Mountains of Southwest China.
• Jingshajiang, Yalongjiang, Daduhe, and Minjiang, originate in the Mountains and are branches of the Yangtze River.

Threats

Endemic Plants

The Giant Panda

• 100 endemic ferns
• 20 endemic gymnosperms
• 2 endemic plant families Circaeasteraceae and the monotypic Acanthochlamydaceae.

• Commercial logging, or logging for homes and firewood.
• Cliffs with no forest cover that are unsuitable for crops are impacted by large herds of grazing animals; yak, sheep, goats.
• Dam building on all main rivers, tourism, which are both accompanied by road expansion.
• Illegal collection and trade of animals as well as hunting.

Endemic Animals

Endemism

• Despite their lack of natural predators pandas are endangered.
• Severe threats from humans have left fewer than 1600 pandas in the wild.
• They rely on bamboo, eating 26-84 pounds of it everyday.
• They play a crucial role in the bamboo forests where they roam, spreading seeds and facilitate the growth of vegetation.

• Bird: The White-speckled laughingthrush

• Mammal: Golden Monkey

The Giant Panda

Conservation Efforts

The Giant Panda

Ailuropoda melanoleuca

Works Cited

http://www.cepf.net/resources/hotspots/Asia-Pacific/Pages/Mountains-of-Southwest-China.aspx

• According to an analysis of protected areas in the World Database of Protected Areas, protected areas in the hotspot cover some 14,000 km² (or 5.3 percent of the area).
• Emei Shan, an isolated and protected limestone mountain on the eastern edge of the hotspot, rises to 3,099 meters and is considered to be one of the botanically richest and most diverse mountains in the Northern Hemisphere.

Outlook

http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/150654/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/twpierson/7598237390/

http://ghsdawgs.com/life/laurenweldy/goldenmonkey.html

http://ibc.lynxeds.com/photo/white-speckled-laughingthrush-ianthocincla-bieti/adult-bird-perched-branch

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yunnan

http://www.worldwildlife.org/species/giant-panda

Endemic Animals

Threats

• Reptiles: Szechwan pit viper
• Amphibians: Xizang alpine toad
• Freshwater Fish: Majority of endemic fish come from these two genus' Schizothorax and Triplophysa.

• The increasing production of roads and railroads disturb the forests, isolating pandas which prevents mating.
• Poaching the animals for their fur has declined due to the strict laws and public awareness. But hunters seeking other animals, kill pandas by accident.

• Logging and over grazing have led to serious erosion n steep slopes and to the siltation of rivers.
• The dams will affect sediment transport and the rivers flooding cycle, leading to the drastic change in upstream and downstream ecosystems.
• While controlled tourism can help reduce logging and other harmful land use, the building of hotels, roads, cable cars, and the presence of a large number of people can lead to severe habitat degradation.

• Plants: 12,000 species, 3500 endemic, 29.2% endemism.
• Mammals: 237 species, 5 endemic species, 2.1% endemism.
• Birds: 611 species, 2 endemic species, .3% endemism.
• Reptiles: 92 species, 15 endemic species, 16.3% endemism.
• Amphibians: 90 species, 8 endemic species, 8.9% endemism.
• Freshwater Fishes: 92 species, 23 endemic species, 25% endemism.

• The Giant Panda is almost entirely restricted to the shrinking forests of this hotspot.
• They live in the heart of the mountains, within the temperate, broadleaf and mixed forests of Southwest China.
• Their range is not much larger than the boundaries of the hotspot.
• One of the world's most threatened animals.

Conservation Efforts

• In 25-30 years I predict that the hotspot will be protected in areas like it is now, but areas that are not, which is majority of the hotspot, will be obliterated by human activity.
• Animals that are living mostly in reservations now will be living only in reservations.
• I think the only way for the Southwest Mountains of China to be reserved is if the Chinese government makes more restrictive laws and pays closer attention to how even the smallest human activities have major effects on the ecosystems within the Mountains.

• A number of Chinese government policies represent hope for conservation in the Mountains of Southwest China. In response to the catastrophic floods of 1998, the government has completely banned logging within most of the hotspot.
• Other laws include a Land Conversion Program, also referred to as the Grain to Green Policy. This program includes a ban on agriculture on steep slopes, prohibitions against forest clearing for shifting agriculture, and specific species protection laws.