A once-barren river park in Beijing has become a thriving ecological sanctuary hosting 880 species, and scientists in northwest China have deployed revolutionary air-sampling technology to track endangered crested ibises, which highlight China's biodiversity protection efforts.
The Wenyu River Park, formerly known for its dust-choked landscape, now serves as the capital's "green lung" after systematic ecological restoration, according to a white book on the park's biodiversity development issued on Thursday, marking the World Environment Day.
The white book reports a stabilized rare bird population with sensitive aquatic indicators like bitterling fish reappearing, as well as significant increase on butterfly diversity.
"Since 2021, based on ecological monitoring, we have carried out various ecological protection practices such as precise water level management, demarcation of closed reserve areas, and protection of natural riverbank lines, thereby achieving the protection of the park's biodiversity," said Wang Yuyu, associate professor in freshwater ecology at Beijing Forestry University. The park's annual visitor volume has now exceeded 8.5 million. It will open wider to the public when its second phase project is completed by the end of September this year.
The transformation of the Wenyu River Park reflects broader changes in Beijing, as the city's forest coverage rate has reached 44.95 percent, and 91 percent of park green space is within a radius of 500 meter to residential areas. In a parallel breakthrough, scientists in Xianyang City of northwest China's Shaanxi Province are using environmental DNA (eDNA) samplers to monitor the endangered crested ibis that is under top-class state protection.
The technique, developed by the Shaanxi Provincial Environmental Monitoring Central Station, is able to identify even a single DNA molecule of crested ibis from a mixture of samples of humans and other birds by using the method of qPCR (quantitative polymerase chain reaction).
"The qPCR monitoring method we developed this time can detect crested ibises even when there is only one DNA molecule of crested ibises in the environment," said Luo Yining, deputy director of the ecological quality monitoring office at Shaanxi Provincial Environmental Monitoring Central Station.
Gene pool for the endangered species is also crucially important in the application of eDNA monitoring technology. So far, the team at the monitoring central station has collected the genomic data of crested ibises from more than three cities, covering different ages, genders and geographical populations.
"This technology enables the monitoring of the existence of the crested ibis without capturing the animal. With the continued improvement in this technology, we can also monitor the population of the crested ibis and its regional distribution. In the future, this technology will also be applied to the monitoring of other rare species," said Zhang Cuirong, deputy director of the analytical testing center at Xianyang Environmental Monitoring Station.
China steps up biodiversity conservation through systematic governance, tech breakthroughs
