Abstract: Evergreen broadleaved forest (EBLF) is the zonal vegetation in East China. To monitor and evaluate the landscape fragmentation of EBLF is essential for the conservation, ecological restoration, and ecological management of the vegetation. In this paper, the identified forest types from NOAA-AVHRR NDVI data, combined with several calculated landscape metrics, were used to analyze the EBLF landscape fragmentation in East China. The results showed that the area of remnant EBLF in East China was only 35427 km², accounting for 5.9% of the whole region, and the average patch area and patch density were 8.55 km² and 0.69 per 100 km², respectively. The number of the patches smaller than 5 km² accounted for 61.2%, but their total area only occupied 5.75%. The same indices for those patches larger than 25 km² were 10% and 58%, respectively. The comparison of the individual provinces having EBLF distribution demonstrated that the landscape metrics, including patch area, mean patch size, patch density, edge density, landscape shape index, largest landscape index, and mean fractal dimension, were ranked in the order of Fujian > Zhejiang > Jiangxi > Anhui, while the metric of mean Euclidian nearest neighbor distance was completely inversed. All these results indicated that the EBLF in East China was in serious landscape fragmentation, giving greater impacts on the regional biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. It would be urgent to perform the ecological restoration, conservation, and management of EBLF in East China.

Key words: Trawl fishing, Marine ecosystem, Trophic index, Composition index