Haley Nate BIOL-1615-031 Summary of Is there a future for Amur tigers in a restored

tiger conservation landscape in Northeast China?

Introduction:
Because the number of wild tigers had dropped below 3,200 (Hebblewhite et al., 2012),
researchers decided to make an effort towards doubling populations by the next year of the tiger
in 2022. To do this, they needed to have a better understanding of the tigers environment and
what should be changed to ensure population growth. Researchers looked at nine different tiger
conservation areas (TCAs) between China and Russia searching for key factors for a
healthy/ideal environment, such as: locations, geography, weather, foliage, human impact, prey
and other predators. Comparing these factors will give researchers a good idea of where to begin
conservation efforts.
This research is valuable as it not only effects the tigers and the natural environment, it
effects the people living in and around the TCAs as well as the government who helps take care
of those people and their land. Especially since human impact on TCAs is significant. Moreover,
if researchers can find a way to determine which TCA is best fit for population growth, their
efforts can be duplicated in areas for other endangered species.
Materials and Methods:
Researchers used three different methods developed by different stakeholder teams,
which included: environmental niche factor analysis (ENFA), resource selection function (RSF),
expert-based habitat suitability index (HSI). For the ENFA method they used a Biomapper 4.0
and applied the harmonic mean algorithm. It was then validated using the k-folds crossvalidation Spearman rank correlation index. For the RSF model, multiple statistical equations

using information found within TCAs: ArcGIS9.3 Zonal Statistics, used & unused sampling units
contrasted with fixed-effects logistic regression, moving window analysis, models created using
Akaike information criteria, likelihood ratio chi-squared test, pseudo-r^2, receiver operating
curves (ROC) and also k-folds cross validation. For the expert-based HIS they used an ArcGIS
9.2, estimates of arbitrary cost functions: tiger habitat = elevation + land cover + road proximity
+ settlement density, with 100 being highest suitability and 0 the lowest.
Results:
The results of all three methods were combined to find the best fit TCAs that could
provide a promising recovery area for the repopulation of tigers. Using the combined information
from their measurements, they determined the top four TCAs: Hunchun-Wangqing complex
(TCA 1), southern Changbaishan (TCA 2), southern Zhangguangailing (TCA 3) and Mulin (TCA
4). Researchers were pleasantly surprised to see that tigers had been migrating back and forth
between China and Russia. Unfortunately, a lack of cooperation from Korea regarding
information on foliage and lack of access into Russia to find the number of tigers present in TCA
1 and 4 did set them back.
Discussion:
The results did show there were multiple TCAs capable of supporting a growing tiger
population; some without having to reintroduce tigers from captivity. Their information shows
where conservation efforts can be used most efficiently to benefit the tiger population, while not
inhibiting the government and populations who live in and around the TCAs. They had enough
information to show where efforts can best be used. However, they could have had more
information from Korea and Russia to contribute to the study; as the extra information could

have greatly changed the results. It was a major setback not being able to work with Russia and
Korea as much as researchers worked with China. The information would have been quite
different, especially since the tiger populations in some of the top TCAs migrate in between
Russia and China. Like the researchers stated later on in their journal all habitat models have
differential weaknesses and strengths (Hebblewhite et al., 2012) regarding their results. More
support from multiple governments could have meant an even better comeback for the tiger
species for the upcoming year of the tiger.

Bibliography

M. Hebblewhite, F. Zimmermann, Z. Li3 , D. G. Miquelle, M. Zhang, H. Sun, F.

Mrschel, Z. Wu, L. Sheng, A. Purekhovsky & Z. Chunquan1 (2012). Is there a
future for Amur tigers in a restored tiger conservation landscape in Northeast
China? Discussion. 587, 579-592