title: Strengthening protected areas for biodiversity and ecosystem services in China.
abstract: Recent expansion of the scale of human activities poses severe threats to Earth's life-support systems. Increasingly, protected areas (PAs) are expected to serve dual goals: protect biodiversity and secure ecosystem services. We report a nationwide assessment for China, quantifying the provision of threatened species habitat and four key regulating services-water retention, soil retention, sandstorm prevention, and carbon sequestration-in nature reserves (the primary category of PAs in China). We find that China's nature reserves serve moderately well for mammals and birds, but not for other major taxa, nor for these key regulating ecosystem services. China's nature reserves encompass 15.1% of the country's land surface. They capture 17.9% and 16.4% of the entire habitat area for threatened mammals and birds, but only 13.1% for plants, 10.0% for amphibians, and 8.5% for reptiles. Nature reserves encompass only 10.2-12.5% of the source areas for the four key regulating services. They are concentrated in western China, whereas much threatened species' habitat and regulating service source areas occur in eastern provinces. Our analysis illuminates a strategy for greatly strengthening PAs, through creating the first comprehensive national park system of China. This would encompass both nature reserves, in which human activities are highly restricted, and a new category of PAs for ecosystem services, in which human activities not impacting key services are permitted. This could close the gap in a politically feasible way. We also propose a new category of PAs globally, for sustaining the provision of ecosystems services and achieving sustainable development goals.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China.
authors.forename: Weihua
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China.
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Xiao
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China.
authors.forename: Jingjing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China.
authors.forename: Wu
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-1682-3349
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China.
authors.forename: Lu
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48823-5243.
authors.forename: Vanessa
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Hull
authors.affiliation: Nanjing Institute of Environmental Sciences, Ministry of Environmental Protection, Nanjing 210042, China.
authors.forename: Zhi
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China.
authors.forename: Hua
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.affiliation: Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48823-5243.
authors.forename: Jianguo
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-6344-0087
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Economics and Natural Capital Project, Institute on the Environment, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN 55108.
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Polasky
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China.
authors.forename: Ling
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Xiao
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China.
authors.forename: Xuewei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China.
authors.forename: Enming
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Rao
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China.
authors.forename: Fei
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China.
authors.forename: Xiaoke
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Center for Conservation Biology, Natural Capital Project, and Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305 gdaily@stanford.edu zyouyang@rcees.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Gretchen C
authors.initials: GC
authors.lastname: Daily
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China; gdaily@stanford.edu zyouyang@rcees.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Zhiyun
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Ouyang
mesh_terms: D000663:Amphibians / Q000254:growth & development; D000818:Animals; D044822:Biodiversity; D001717:Birds / Q000254:growth & development; D002681:China; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D017753:Ecosystem; D056727:Endangered Species; D005843:Geography; D006802:Human Activities; D006801:Humans; D008322:Mammals / Q000254:growth & development; D063245:Plant Development; D012104:Reptiles / Q000254:growth & development; D012987:Soil
chemical_list: D012987:Soil
keywords: conservation strategy; ecosystem services; protected areas; sustainable development; threatened species representation