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Habitat Suitability Modeling for Tiger (Panthera Tigris) in the Hukaung Valley Tiger Reserve, Northern Myanmar

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Habitat Suitability Modeling for Tiger (Panthera Tigris) in the Hukaung Valley Tiger Reserve, Northern Myanmar Habitat Suitability Modeling for Tiger (Panthera tigris) in the Hukaung Valley Tiger Reserve, Northern Myanmar Tin Zar Kywe GEORG-AUGUST-UNIVERSITÄT GÖTTINGEN FACULTY OF FOREST SCIENCES AND FOREST ECOLOGY - Chair of FOREST INVENTORY AND REMOTE SENSING - Göttingen, 2012 Habitat Suitability Modeling for Tiger (Panthera tigris) in the Hukaung Valley Tiger Reserve, Northern Myanmar A dissertation to obtain the degree “Doctor of Philosophy” (Ph.D.) at the Faculty of Forest Science and Forest Ecology of Georg-August-Universität Göttingen by Tin Zar Kywe Born in Dawei, Myanmar Göttingen, im September 2012 Referee, co-referee and examiner Prof. Dr. Christoph Kleinn (Referee) Director of Chair of Forest Inventory and Remote Sensing, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany Prof. Dr. Niko Balkenhol (Co-referee) Professor of Wildlife Management, Chair of Forest Zoology & Forest Conservation, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany Prof. Dr. Dirk Hölscher (Examiner) Director of Chair of Tropical Silviculture and Forest Ecology, Burckhardt-Institute, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany Date of oral examination: September 5, 2012 This book is dedicated to: My parents and parents-in-law My teachers My only brother who unfortunately passed away 13 years ago My three elder sisters and brothers-in-law My beloved husband ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Firstly, I feel indebted to the Forest Department, Ministry of Environmental Conservation and Forestry of Union of Myanmar for being admitted to apply for this PhD study. I am also deeply indebted to DAAD-Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (German Academic Exchange Service) for financial support for my study. I express my heartfelt gratitude to my professor Dr. Christoph Kleinn, director of the chair of Forest Inventory and Remote Sensing, for accepting me to study under his direction and for his valuable suggestion. Particular thanks go to Dr. Axel Buschmann who gave me the main guidelines for conceptual framework development and technical realization as well as ceaseless help throughout my study. I have no words to express my thanks to both of them. I also deeply thank to Prof. Dr. Niko Balkenhol, professor of Wildlife Management to take a role of a co-referee and reviewed the draft and guided me in completing my thesis. Special thanks also go to the Prof. Dr. Dirk Hölscher (director of the chair of Tropical Silviculture and Forest Ecology) who takes a responsibility as an examiner. And I am grateful to Prof. Dr. Ralph Mitloehner for advising me to get a chance of this study and his kind encouragement throughout this study. I also thank my friend Henning Aberle (PhD candidate) who kindly provided advice in GIS and all my colleagues from Chair of Forest Inventory and Remote Sensing who were always ready to help me. I would next like to extend my sincere gratitude to Wildlife Conservation Society (Myanmar Programme) for providing me GIS data sources. Special thanks are also according to Nature and Wildlife Conservation Division (NWCD), Park Warden and the staff of the Hukaung Wildlife Office, Tanai Township for their essential assistance during my field work and data collection in Hukaung Valley Tiger Reserve. And my thanks also go to my friends and my country mates for their moral support while I lived in Germany. I deeply extend my deepest thanks to my beloved parents as well as my respectful parents- in-law, my three sisters, my brother-in-laws, my sister-in-laws and my lovely niece who gave me love, prayer and encouragement to accomplish this study. Finally, it is impossible without love, understanding, tolerance and patience of my husband, U Moe Aung (Staff Officer, Planning and Statistics Division, Forest Department) who have always encouraged me to complete this study successfully. Contents List of Tables iv List of Figures vi List of Abbreviations and Acronyms x 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 General Background and Problem Statement 1 1.2 The Relevance of Habitat Suitability Modeling for Biodiversity Conservation 3 1.3 Protection Status of Tigers and Biodiversity in Myanmar 5 1.4 Important Issues Facing in the Hukaung Valley Tiger Reserve 8 1.5 Research Questions 12 1.6 Objectives 12 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 13 2.1 Tiger Ecology 13 2.1.1 Species description 13 2.1.2 Hunting behaviour 15 2.1.3 Dispersal capabilities 16 2.1.4 Natural habitat of tiger 17 2.1.5 The decline of the tiger population 20 2.1.6 Habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation 20 2.1.7 Human intervention 22 2.1.8 Tiger conservation in Myanmar 26 2.1.9 The wild tiger‟s status in the world 28 2.2 Habitat Suitability Modeling (HSM) 29 2.3 Overview of Different Groups of Habitat Suitability Models 30 2.4 The Role of RS and GIS in Large Area Habitat Modeling 32 2.5 Application of Ecological Niche Factor Analysis (ENFA) 34 3 MATERIALS AND METHODS 37 3.1 Study Area and Target Period 37 3.2 Data Collection 39 3.3 Data Sets 40 3.3.1 Landsat data acquisition 40 3.3.2 Species data 41 3.3.3 Environmental data 43 3.4 Data Preparation for the Study 46 i 3.4.1 Landsat image processing 46 3.4.2 Segmentation-based land use classification: Object-oriented image analysis 47 3.4.3 Vector to raster transformation method 52 3.5 Scale level of analysis 54 3.6 Accuracy assessment of segmentation-based classification (Confusion/Error matrix) 56 3.7 Identification of Tiger Preferences and Transformation Method into Quantitative EGVs 59 3.8 Creation of Species Presence Boolean Raster Map 64 3.9 EGVs Categorization for Variable Selection 65 3.10 Preparation of EGV Layers for the Statistical Model 66 3.11 Presence-only Habitat Suitability Model; Ecological Niche Factor Analysis 68 3.12 Model Evaluation 75 3.13 Reclassification of the habitat suitability map 79 3.14 Framework of the Study 80 4 RESULTS 82 4.1 Creation of Land Cover Map 82 4.2 Quantitative EGVs maps 83 4.2.1 Topographical EGVs 83 4.2.2 Human-factor EGVs 85 4.2.3 Landscape-compositional EGVs 86 4.2.3.1 Distance and area-related landscape-compositional EGVs 86 4.2.3.2 Length-related landscape compositional variables 87 4.3 Accuracy Assessment of Segmentation-based Land Use Classification Map 89 4.4 Normality Test of EGVs 91 4.5 Ecological Niche Factor Analysis 91 4.5.1 Preliminary ENFA model: Score matrix and model evaluation 91 4.5.2 Final /Best ENFA model: Score matrix and model evaluation 94 4.5.3 Habitat suitability map 96 4.5.4 Reclassification of habitat suitability map 97 5 DISCUSSION 99 5.1 Discussion of Methods 99 5.1.1 Land use changes and tiger detection information in the study area 99 5.1.2 Major issues of data availability 100 5.1.3 Segmentation-based land use classification and accuracy assessment 102 ii 5.1.4 Variable identification 103 5.2 Discussion of Results 104 5.2.1 Ecological niche factor analysis (ENFA) 104 5.2.1.1 Score matrix of preliminary the ENFA model 104 5.2.1.2 Score matrix of the final ENFA model 105 5.2.1.3 Habitat suitability map 109 5.2.2 Advantages and limitations of the ENFA model 111 6 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 113 7 SUMMARY 117 8 ZUSAMMENFASSUNG 120 9 ANSWERS TO THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS 124 10 REFERENCES 126 11 APPENDICES 140 iii List of Tables Table 1: Forest cover changes in Myanmar in sq. miles (FAO, FRA, 2010)........................ 2 Table 2: Laws relating to biodiversity conservation in Myanmar (NCEA, Myanmar, 2009). ................................................................................................................................. 7 Table 3: Myanmar‟s commitment to biodiversity-related agreements/conventions. ............ 8 Table 4: 12 WWF Priority Tiger Landscapes (for map see Fig. 9) (WWF, Save Tigers Now, 2012). ..................................................................................................................... 25 Table 5: Participants in the Tiger Conservation Programme (WWF, Save Tigers Now, 2012). ..................................................................................................................... 25 Table 6: Survey efforts for tiger using camera-traps in the HVTR (Lynam et al., 2008). .. 43 Table 7: The classification items of existing reference land use map in which the classes marked with gray color were excluded in the segmentation-based land use classification of the core zone of the current study (Source: WCS, Myanmar Programme, 2003)................................................................................................. 45 Table 8: Separated segmentation processes with various parameters in eCognition 3. The level 8 in red showed the best one for segmentation of this study. ........................ 49 Table 9: Definitions of scale-related terminology and concepts (Source: Turner et al. 1989) ...................................................................................................................... 55 Table 10: Environmental variables for the quantitative mapping of tiger preferences with respect to topographical variables. ....................................................................... 60 Table 11: Environmental variables for quantitative mapping of tiger preferences for avoiding human interferences. .............................................................................. 61 Table 12: Environmental variables for the quantitative mapping of tiger preferences with respect to tiger hunting places. ............................................................................. 61 Table 13: Environmental variables for quantitative mapping of tiger preferences with respect to landscape composition.........................................................................
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