A Piece of the Puzzle: Evaluating the Effectiveness of the Newly Designated Qilianshan National Park (China) and Its Contribution to Snow Leopard (Panthera Uncia) Habitat Connectivity

Abstract

The assessment of landscape-level connectivity patterns is vital for wildlife conservation, particularly highly mobile carnivores such as the snow leopard (Panthera uncia), whose protection requires linking core populations beyond protected area boundaries. We evaluated the effectiveness of Qilianshan National Park (China), spanning Gansu and Qinghai provinces, in conserving key snow leopard habitats and dispersal routes. Using resistant kernel, graph-based, and factorial least-cost path analyses, we identified core habitat areas and major connecting corridors, comparing two resistance surfaces derived from habitat and genetic models. We ranked modeled core areas and corridors based on their contribution to overall connectivity and predicted snow leopard movement intensity. Results show that a substantial portion of core habitat patches and most modeled corridors are located outside the current park boundaries. The kernel analyses identified critical yet unprotected areas essential to range-wide connectivity. We identified core patches that form the backbone of the snow leopard habitat, as well as stepping-stone patches and corridors that maintain structural and functional landscape connectivity. Based on these findings, we give recommendations for the prioritization of certain management actions. While Qilianshan National Park safeguards some key snow leopard habitats, its current extent is insufficient to cover many critical areas and linkages. To support metapopulation persistence and gene flow across this pivotal region—potentially linking the Tibetan Plateau and southern Mongolia—conservation efforts for the Qilianshan National Park should prioritize the expansion of existing protections or the designation of new protected areas in strategic locations to conserve a greater number of core habitat areas and provide connectivity linkages among them.

Keywords

Conefor / landscape connectivity / least-cost path / protected areas / resistant kernel / snow leopard

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