The giant panda () is more than just a fluffy conservation icon and a beloved media darling. It is also, according to new research, the protector of dozens of other unique Chinese species.
No, the panda itself doesn’t actually defend other wildlife, but it helps to save them all the same by serving as what’s known as an “umbrella species.” In other words, efforts to preserve habitats for the giant panda also protect many other mammals, birds and amphibians that live only alongside pandas, in the same areas and regions.
Conservationists have expressed this umbrella species theory for years but a paper published today in proves it. The research looks at China’s endemic wildlife—species that exist nowhere else on Earth—and found that 70 percent of the country’s forest mammals, 70 percent of forest birds and 31 percent of forest amphibians all live within the panda’s geographic range and the nature reserves set aside to protect them. All told, 96 percent of this range overlaps with important conservation areas for other endemic forest species. “I was very pleasantly surprised by how well the panda does as an umbrella species,” says Stuart Pimm, the paper’s senior author and Doris Duke Professor of Conservation at Duke University. “The mountains of southwest China are a biodiversity hotspot. There are a lot of species that are protected by the panda’s range.”
The new findings are important, Pimm and Li say, because many people doubt that China’s commitment to preserving giant panda habitat is doing much good. Other people around the world don’t even realize that wild pandas . “A lot of the resources in China go to releasing captive pandas back into the wild,” Li says. “The news doesn’t cover that.” She says this paper helps showcase wild pandas and also demonstrate that the expense in preserving them is money well spent.
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