International: Identifying strategies to protect biodiversity in rapidly-developing southwest China: Songbird abundance and diversity in Tibetan sacred forests

该博士论文提升计划奖支持Jodi Brandt女士在中国的实地研究，其目的是确定有效的保护策略。具体项目将调查西藏圣林斑块，保护区，如何促进生物多样性在一个非常重要的，但高度威胁的生物多样性热点，中国西南部的喜马拉雅山脉。她将验证以下假设：圣林中的鸟类多样性和丰度高于周围景观，圣林是维持区域生物多样性的重要基石结构。研究将在云南省西北部进行。在Volker Radeloff博士的指导下，勃兰特博士将与两位经验丰富的中国生态学家，一位来自西南林业大学的鸟类学家和一位来自香格里拉高山植物园的植物学家合作进行研究。他们将在云南西北部最发达、变化最快的地区香格里拉市附近的圣林中调查繁殖鸟类群落和鸟类栖息地。尽管滇西北对区域鸟类生物多样性具有重要意义，但研究区尚未开展森林鸣禽的研究。该研究为了解这一快速变化地区的森林鸟类栖息地和分布提供了基础研究。它将在一个独特的、未被研究过的地区探索关键的生态概念。承认神圣区域是保护生物多样性的重要手段，可以确保它们在面对加速的政治、社会经济和文化变化时继续存在，并可能为世界其他地区的保护提供新的途径。

This Doctoral Dissertation Enhancement Program award supports the field research in China of Ms. Jodi Brandt, whose objective is to identify effective strategies of conservation. The specific project will investigate how Tibetan sacred-forest patches, protected areas, contribute to biodiversity in a very important but highly-threatened biodiversity hotspot, the Himalayan Mountains of Southwest China. She will test the hypothesis that bird diversity and abundance are higher in the sacred forests than in the surrounding landscapes, and that the sacred forests are important keystone structures for the maintenance of regional biodiversity. The research will be performed in Northwest Yunnan Province. PhD student Brandt, under the direction of Dr. Volker Radeloff, will conduct the research in collaboration with two experienced Chinese ecologists, an ornithologist from the Southwest Forestry University and a botanist from the Shangri-la Alpine Botanical Garden. They will survey breeding-bird communities and bird habitat in sacred forests near Shangri-la City, the most developed and rapidly changing region in NW Yunnan.Despite the importance of NW Yunnan for regional avian biodiversity, no research has been done on forest songbirds in the study area. This research represents a foundational study to understand forest-bird habitat and distribution in this rapidly-changing region. It will explore critical ecological concepts in a unique and unstudied region. Acknowledging sacred areas as an important means to protect biodiversity could ensure their continued existence in the face of accelerating political, socioeconomic, and cultural change and may offer new avenues for conservation in other parts of the world.