The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed: "Enhance the diversity, stability, and sustainability of ecosystems" and "implement major projects for biodiversity protection." As a "national treasure", the giant panda's population has steadily expanded in recent years, its habitat environment has continued to improve, and conservation research has continued to make progress, becoming the embodiment of my country's ecological civilization construction and biodiversity protection achievements.

Today, Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research Base, Beijing Zoo and other places are crowded with tourists. Many people queue for hours just to see "Menglan", "Huahua" and other giant pandas. "Style". The pictures, texts and videos of these "Internet celebrity" giant pandas have also been widely forwarded on the Internet. From the praises of tourists to the comments that "blow the screen", they all say "too cute" and "so cute".

Giant pandas are indeed "loved by everyone". But this cuteness did not arise out of thin air, but benefited from the earth's hundreds of millions of years of evolution. It contains the code of biological evolution and also reflects the progress of giant panda protection, breeding and ecological research.

There are individual differences in whether giant pandas are clumsy and naive or agile

Among the millions of biological species on earth, giant pandas are undoubtedly one of the most eye-catching species. 1: Round face, clear black and white body color, big dark circles under the eyes, a pair of black ears on the head, plus a furry and chubby body, which not only gives people a naive and cute impression, but also full of cute and cute childishness. .

The round face of the giant panda is due to the swollen and protruding zygomatic arch on both sides and the relatively shortened snout. Its distinct black and white body color is also one of the signs of cuteness. This body color is helpful for keeping warm in the mountain forest environment and plays a concealing role to a certain extent. However, not all giant pandas are black and white. Currently, Qizai, a brown-and-white giant panda rescued from the wild in Foping Nature Reserve, lives at the Qinling Giant Panda Research Center. From 1985 to now, brown and white giant pandas have been discovered six times in the Qinling Mountains. In 2019, scientific researchers also photographed a white giant panda cub through an infrared camera in the Wolong Nature Reserve.

Compared with the more developed sense of smell and hearing, the visual ability of giant pandas is not strong, which is roughly equivalent to human 800-degree myopia. However, in the dense bamboo forest environment, there seems to be no need for giant pandas to evolve keen vision. When the giant panda walks, its front and rear limbs are splayed, making it look funny and cute. On the one hand, giant pandas often give people the impression of a slow pace, and this slow way of moving is indeed conducive to saving energy; on the other hand, giant pandas can wade in water and climb trees, and their joints are very flexible, and they can often do Unexpected moves, such as "Menglan" stretching a "horse" on a tree branch, became popular on the Internet. In fact, there are individual differences in whether giant pandas are clumsy and naive or agile, and it is also related to the timing of people's observation.

In terms of classification, should pandas be classified as Ursidae, Raccoonidae, or should they be listed separately as Pandas? Three views have emerged historically, each provided with much evidence to support it. This debate has been going on for more than 100 years since the scientific discovery of giant pandas in the 19th century. In the late 1980s, with the rapid development of molecular biology, new research showed that the giant panda belongs to the Ursidae family in terms of classification status, and is the earliest differentiated branch of the Ursidae family. In this sense, the giant panda should be a "cat-like bear" rather than a "bear-like cat". Of course, considering the special nature of the giant panda, some scholars still insist on classifying the giant panda as a separate species in the family Pandaidae.

From eating carnivores to living on bamboo, it brought about a series of adaptive changes

Giant pandas are classified as carnivores, and they still retain the characteristics of the digestive system of typical carnivores. , but this species has specialized in feeding on bamboo, which has led to a series of adaptive changes in morphology, behavior, physiology, genetics, etc. Therefore, the giant panda is an ideal model species in the field of biological research. Focusing on the giant panda's dietary changes and adaptation to bamboo, scientists have conducted a large number of evolutionary biology studies from aspects such as morphology, behavior, physiology, and genetics. In terms of conservation biology, there are many studies on the giant panda's endangerment crisis, evolutionary potential, conservation management, and other aspects. Research on effectiveness evaluation is also emerging one after another.

According to research, perhaps about 2 million years ago, small species of giant pandas had specialized in eating bamboo. Due to its high fiber content, bamboo is certainly a low nutritional quality food for giant pandas. In the long process of evolution, the radial sesamoid bones of the giant panda's forelimbs have expanded to form a "pseudo-thumb" to facilitate grasping bamboo branches when eating; the enlarged zygomatic arch is attached with developed chewing muscles to adapt to biting, chewing, and chewing. Processed food. Since the digestion and utilization rate of bamboo is very low, in order to meet the material and energy needs in daily life, giant pandas have developed a foraging strategy of eating a large amount of food and letting the food pass through the digestive intestine quickly. Research on wild giant pandas in Wolong Nature Reserve shows that during the bamboo leaf feeding season, adult giant pandas can consume 10 kilograms of bamboo leaves per day, about 10% of their body weight; during the bamboo shoot season, they can consume up to 38 kilograms of bamboo leaves per day. Kilogram, about 40% of body weight. From this point of view, giant pandas can be described as real "foodies".

In order to adapt to large amounts of food, wild giant pandas spend more than 50% of the day eating bamboo, day and night, basically in a state of "eating, sleeping, and sleeping and eating." The giant pandas in Wolong Nature Reserve do not move long linear distances every day, mostly within 500 meters, and live in an area of ​​4-6 square kilometers all year round. Research in recent years has shown that some of the giant panda's high-energy-consuming organs (such as the brain, liver and kidneys) have shrunk significantly, and the microorganisms in the intestines can assist in the digestion of some cellulose and hemicellulose, which is a negative impact on the bamboo-based lifestyle. adapt.

Wild animal populations have generally developed mechanisms to avoid inbreeding to ensure the long-term survival and evolutionary potential of the species. However, unlike the "male-biased dispersal" of most mammals, wild giant panda populations show a "female-biased dispersal" pattern, that is, female sub-adults disperse from the population. This phenomenon is similar to "married girls" in human society to a certain extent, but the difference is that the female sub-adults of giant pandas have not reached sexual maturity when they spread. In recent years, studies have shown that the phenomenon of "female-biased diffusion" of giant pandas may be related to competition for nursery caves and food resources.

In the 1970s and 1980s, large areas of bamboo, the staple food, bloomed and died in the Minshan and Qionglai Mountains where giant pandas are distributed, causing people to worry about the future fate of giant pandas. The pessimistic view of entering an "evolutionary dead end". However, a series of studies by Chinese scientists have shown that giant pandas have developed a series of functional adaptations to bamboo, a special food, during their long-term evolution. Wild giant pandas still have high reproductive rates and potential population growth rates. The level of genetic diversity also indicates that this species still has high evolutionary potential. Giant pandas are not a relic species at the "end of evolution."

The establishment of the Giant Panda National Park marks a new stage for the protection of giant pandas in my country

The fossil of the oldest member of the giant panda known so far, the Eo-Panda, was unearthed in Lu, Yunnan, my country. Feng, the geological age is about 8 million years ago in the late Miocene. Since then, the primitive panda has successively experienced the small species of giant panda, the giant panda Wulingshan species, and the giant panda Basin subspecies, and then developed into the current giant panda. Therefore, the giant panda is a rare species native to China. Coincidentally, the earliest pandas and Yuanmou people in China were born almost in the same place.

Since the founding of New China, the Chinese government has continuously strengthened the scientific protection of giant pandas and successively established four nature reserves in Sichuan, including Wolong, Baihe, Wanglang and Diaohe. At the same time, research on giant panda biology has gradually developed. Since the 1990s, with the joint efforts of scientific researchers, my country's giant panda research has gradually reached the forefront of the world, and giant panda science has become a "prominent science" in global wildlife research.

Knowing the wild giant panda population is the basis and prerequisite for scientific protection of giant pandas. However, wild giant pandas are distributed in inaccessible alpine forests and are wary by nature, making it difficult to count them directly in the wild. Later, scientists discovered that giant panda feces were often accompanied by "bite joints" formed by biting and cutting bamboo stems. Therefore, they invented the method of distinguishing individual giant pandas based on the length of the bite joints, the neatness of the cut edges, the distance where the feces was found, and the terrain. "Bite-distance method" with population survey. Interestingly, fresh giant panda feces are often accompanied by the fragrance of bamboo, and the mucosa on the surface of the feces often contains exfoliated cells from the intestinal wall. On the basis of extracting DNA from exfoliated cells, scientists invented molecular biology methods for individual identification and quantitative survey of giant pandas. In recent years, methods of monitoring and surveying the number of giant pandas through infrared cameras have also begun to emerge, and attempts are being made to use artificial intelligence technology to perform "cat face recognition" to distinguish different individuals.

Since 1974, my country has conducted a total of four giant panda surveys. The fourth survey shows that the national wild giant panda population and habitat area have increased by more than 10%. As of the end of 2013, the number of wild giant pandas in the country reached more than 1,800, but they are distributed in different places. Some of the populations have less than 30 giant pandas. It is very difficult to maintain the giant panda population simply through on-site protection. Therefore, my country has launched a giant panda reintroduction project to reintroduce captive-bred giant pandas into the wild to revitalize small and endangered populations in the wild. Through this creative conservation method of active manual intervention, more than 10 captive giant pandas have been released into small giant panda populations in Liziping and other places. In October 2021, my country announced the official establishment of the first batch of national parks including giant panda parks. The Giant Panda National Park covers an area of ​​approximately 2.2 million hectares, covering approximately 60% of the wild giant panda habitat and home to more than 70% of wild giant panda individuals. The establishment of the Giant Panda National Park marks that my country's giant panda protection has entered a new stage.

In 2016, the World Conservation Union (IUCN) downgraded the threat level of the giant panda from "endangered" to "vulnerable" in its Red Data Book, reflecting my country's achievements in the field of giant panda protection. The remarkable results demonstrate my country's image as a responsible major country in the field of nature protection. With the joint efforts of all sectors of society, giant panda protection and research have become a success story that the Chinese are writing, setting an example for global wildlife protection. Focusing on the future, protecting our "national treasure" and promoting the high-quality development of giant panda conservation research will surely make new contributions to building a community of life on earth!