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Agroforestry impacts frogs and their habitats in threatened rock outcrops of the Western Ghats

Writer's picture: Jithin VijayanJithin Vijayan

Updated: Dec 6, 2024

Happy and excited to share this work "Orchards and paddy differentially impact rock outcrop amphibians: Insights from community- and species-level responses" published recently in Ecological Applications, a journal of the Ecological Society of America.


Along with Manali Rane, Dr. Aparna Watve, and Dr. Rohit Naniwadekar, in this study, we show significant impacts of agriculture on amphibian diversity in the unique lateritic plateaus of the northern Western Ghats. We compared amphibian diversity and abundance across natural plateaus, paddy fields, and mango/cashew orchards in the Ratnagiri region.


See the below video for a summary of the study:



Our main findings were:

  1. Converting plateaus to paddy and orchards altered microhabitat availability by reducing the rock pool habitat availability in paddy and orchards, and increased deep, water‐submerged areas and grass cover in paddy.

  2. Amphibian diversity was lowest in paddy and abundance was least in orchards compared to the relatively undisturbed plateaus.

  3. Endemic species, including the CEPF Burrowing Frog (Minervarya cepfi) and Goan Fejervarya (Minervarya gomantaki) were less abundant in modified habitats, indicating that agroforestry practices may be particularly detrimental to these vulnerable amphibians.

  4. Minervarya syhadrensis, commonly found across South Asia, were more prevalent in paddy fields, suggesting shifts in community composition due to habitat changes.


Given the expansion of orchards, we recommend adapting agroforestry practices to be more frog-friendly. Retaining natural water bodies and adding water sources in orchards, combined with sensitization and incentives for landowners, could help mitigate habitat loss.


Our previous work has also shown the impact of changing agricultural practices on the threatened lateritic plateau ecosystem and the wide-range of endemic biodiversity there (see here).

This study was funded by On the Edge Conservation (UK), Bombay Environmental Action Group, The Habitat Trust, and Nature Conservation Foundation (India). We thank Chandrakanth Gurav, Harshad Tulpule, Kamalakar Gurav, Pooja Ghate, Pradeep Dingakar, Rakesh Patil, Ravindra Karandikar, Suhas Gurjar, Sujan Dandekar, and Yash Vichare for their support during the study.


See the full-research article here: https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.3058

A pre-print version is available here: https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.10.03.560737


Also enjoy some of our best field photographs during this work in the Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America here: https://doi.org/10.1002/bes2.2208



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This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. All materials (media files, texts) are subjected to the CC BY 4.0 unless otherwise mentioned. Great care has been taken to maintain the accuracy of the information contained in the webpage. However, neither the writer, nor any associated parties can be held responsible for any consequences arising from the use of the information contained therein.

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