A review of research on Ayubia National Park, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.

National parks belong to one of the six categories of Protected Areas identified by the World Conservation Union. National parks play an important role in the conservation of biodiversity, scenic beauty or landscape and promotion of ecotourism. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) Province, Pakistan, has six National Parks. Ayubia National Park, District Abbottabad, KPK, holds a pivotal position in terms of its ecological and tourism value. We aimed to provide a synthesis of research conducted to date on this National Park, identify major gaps and suggest future research and management options. We searched available published literature on biodiversity and ecotourism of the National Park using internet search engines and other online sources by spending 4400 minutes. We downloaded a total of 65 articles, reports, and theses and retained 45 for this review. We extracted our required data from each selected article by thoroughly reading its objectives and results. We created a spreadsheet to make an overview chart of the extracted data. The available literature shows that mammals and flora have remained main focus of research on biodiversity. Likewise, work on the food habits and human-wildlife conflict has also been centered on mammals. Studies conducted to date report 22 species of mammals, 116 birds, 2 amphibians, 101 lepidopterans and 298 plants. The National Park attracted 120,000 visitors per year in early 2000s which rose to > 150,000 visitors per year in 2019. The studies so far on the aspects mentioned show following gaps: short duration, limited sampling, misidentification, and others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]