caa a22 4500 60552839X CHVBK 20210128100812.0 cr unu---uuuuu 210128e20151001xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s10531-015-0959-8 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s10531-015-0959-8 Effectiveness of national nature reserve network in representing natural vegetation in mainland China [Elektronische Daten] [Ziliang Guo, Zhong Li, Guofa Cui] The conservation of natural vegetation directly impacts biodiversity conservation; thus, it is important to evaluate the effectiveness of vegetation protection in nature reserve networks. In this study, ArcGIS 10.0 was used for gap analysis of terrestrial vegetation protection within the national nature reserve network in mainland China. Overall, 9.75% of the land area was covered by 366 national nature reserves. The bias of the protection ratio was particularly obvious among the different vegetation regions, zones, provinces and districts. The warm temperate deciduous broadleaf forest region was the least protected (1.84%), and most of the NNRs were located in the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau alpine vegetation region (35.8%). Moreover, in most vegetation zones (57.14%), less than 5% of the area was protected, and in vegetation provinces and vegetation districts, 8.85 and 35.87%, respectively, were not protected by national nature reserves. However, the number of national nature reserves could be higher in these vegetation zones, provinces and districts than in other areas. The protection bias became more significant as the analysis scale decreased. In addition, nearly 25% of the natural formations in mainland China were unprotected by national nature reserves. A bias was also observed in the protection of different natural formations, with a lack or lower degree of protection for desert, grass-forb community, steppe, and scrub biomes, which were spread throughout northwest and eastern China. A distinct lack of protected areas was observed in certain parts of the country. Therefore, additional land may require protection in the vegetation provinces and districts in the Tianshan Mountains, Junggar Basin, West Kunlun Mountains, Loess Plateau, and karst districts in southwest Guangxi Province and along the southeast coast of China. Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht, 2015 Protection nationallicence Gaps nationallicence Vegetation region nationallicence Vegetation zone nationallicence Vegetation province nationallicence Vegetation district nationallicence Vegetation type nationallicence Guo Ziliang School of Nature Conservation, Beijing Forestry University, 100083, Beijing, China aut Li Zhong The Giant Panda Protection and Research Center of China, 625000, Ya'an, China aut Cui Guofa School of Nature Conservation, Beijing Forestry University, 100083, Beijing, China aut Biodiversity and Conservation Springer Netherlands 24/11(2015-10-01), 2735-2750 0960-3115 24:11<2735 2015 24 10531 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-015-0959-8 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-015-0959-8 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Guo Ziliang School of Nature Conservation, Beijing Forestry University, 100083, Beijing, China aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Li Zhong The Giant Panda Protection and Research Center of China, 625000, Ya'an, China aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Cui Guofa School of Nature Conservation, Beijing Forestry University, 100083, Beijing, China aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Biodiversity and Conservation Springer Netherlands 24/11(2015-10-01), 2735-2750 0960-3115 24:11<2735 2015 24 10531