title: 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 in the late nineteenth century. Isolated gibbon populations persisted for about 40 years before local extinction. Populations persisted for longer at higher elevations, and disappeared earlier from northern and eastern regions, with the biogeography of population loss consistent with the contagion model of range collapse in response to human demographic expansion spreading directionally across China. The long-term Chinese historical record can track extinction events and human interactions with the environment across much longer timescales than are usually addressed in ecology, contributing novel baselines for conservation and an increased understanding of extinction dynamics and species vulnerability or resilience to human pressures.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, Regent's Park, London NW1 4RY, UK samuel.turvey@ioz.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Samuel T
authors.initials: ST
authors.lastname: Turvey
authors.affiliation: Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, Regent's Park, London NW1 4RY, UK.
authors.forename: Jennifer J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Crees
authors.affiliation: ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions, NERP Environmental Decisions Hub, Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland 4072, Australia.
authors.forename: Martina M I
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Di Fonzo
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002681:China; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D003710:Demography; D053476:Extinction, Biological; D005843:Geography; D016674:Hylobatidae / Q000502:physiology*; D011157:Population Dynamics; D013997:Time Factors
keywords: dynamic biogeography; evidence-based conservation; gazetteer; gibbon; range collapse; range fragmentation