Result
Effects of anthropic
and climatic factors
Through spatial-temporal GAM analysis, we found that population and
temperature had significantly positive correlations with the local
extinctions of Chinese pangolin in 1700-2000 across China (Table 1). The
extinction probability of the Chinese pangolin increased with increasing
temperature and total population growth (Fig. 1). In addition,
geographic distribution was also associated with local extinctions, and
Chinese pangolins were more likely to go extinct at high longitudes and
latitudes in China (Fig. 1). However, the effects of population density,
cropland, grazing and regional temperature on local extinctions of
Chinese pangolin were not detected through this method (Table 1). The
opinion that climate change and human interference affected the survival
and geographical distribution of Chinese pangolins was confirmed.
However, we could still not determine which variable played a pivotal
role in local extinctions of Chinese pangolin according to the
regression models. Total population and average temperature of China
both present increasing trends. The difference is the temperature are
much more fluctuant (Fig.S1,
Fig.S2).