I co-authored a new study led by Himanshu Lad and Ninad Gosavi, highlighting the significant effects of agroforestry plantations on the population demography, habitat use, and body condition of endemic shrub frog species in the northern Western Ghats of Maharashtra, part of the Western Ghats - Sri Lanka Biodiversity Hotspot.
The study published in Animal Conservation, a journal of the Zoological Society of London (UK), can be read here: https://doi.org/10.1111/acv.12991 (Pre-print: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.05.17.594636)
The study was conducted by our team at the Nature Conservation Foundation. We found that densities of Pseudophilautus amboli were lower in cashew plantations, with lower number of juveniles. In contrast, rubber plantations supported similar densities of adult frogs in forests, despite lower shrub and tree densities.
Interestingly, male frogs in rubber plantations were smaller than in forests, indicating the impacts of rubber plantations. We also found extremely skewed sex ratios in shrub frog populations, with only around three adult females for every 100 males.
Our study shows how changes in the landscape are impacting these small frogs that live on the small plants, leaf litter and trees. We document their altered habitat use, such as their increased use of plastic materials that are available in the rubber plantations over the natural tree trunks.
The grant from the On the Edge Conservation (UK) funded the study. We thank Maharashtra Forest Department and local naturalists and herpetologists whose insights contributed significantly to the successful completion of the study.
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