Forest-cover change rather than climate change determined giant panda's population persistence

Climate and land-use change are two primary drivers of global biodiversity loss, which increase the risks of extinction for giant panda, an umbrella and one of the most heavily invested species in conservation. Understanding how giant panda responds to these environmental changes thus is critical for developing long-term effective conservation strategies. However, until now most studies focused on only the effects of either climate change or land-use change on giant panda. So, if the potential combined effects of these processes are greater than either of them, the current conservation recommendations would be inappropriate or misleading. Here, based on two national survey data on giant panda occurrences across nearly thirty years, we quantified the variation of giant panda's population persistence as a function of land-use (measured as forest-cover) change, climate (measured as annual mean temperature (MAT), annual mean summer temperature (MAST) and annual mean precipitation (MAP)) change, and the synergistic effect of land-use and climate change. We found forest-cover change explained 38.1% of giant panda's persistence variation, while climate change explained 20.1% of the variation, and the synergistic effect of land-use and climate change explained only 1.5% of the variation. We confirmed that forest-cover change surpassed climate change or the synergistic effect between them as the greatest force driving giant panda's population persistence. Our findings highlighted the urgent need for a more comprehensive understanding of the relative effects of climate change by integrating climate change and land-use change rather than just focusing on climate change in tackling global biodiversity loss.