Agroforest vital for rare small apes
Skywalker gibbons display unexpected adaptability to environmental changes
"According to some research, forests hosting caoguo cultivation could experience a reduction in canopy coverage ranging from 25 percent to 50 percent," Fan, who named the Skywalker hoolock gibbon, told China Daily. "The overall canopy structure of the forest ecosystem would be changed."
Despite being a relatively less damaging agricultural practice to forest structure, cardamom cultivation may reduce the density of food trees for Skywalker hoolock gibbons and impede their efficient foraging due to the discontinuity in the forest canopy.
In response to this scenario, Fan and his team conducted long-term field observations and comparative studies on the gibbons living in the Gaoligongshan nature reserve's forests where cardamom is grown.
They published their findings in the article "Cardamom (Amomum tsaoko) agroforest is important habitat for skywalker hoolock gibbon (Hoolock tianxing) in Mt Gaoligong, Yunnan, China", in Global Ecology and Conservation, an open access international scientific journal, in October.
