TY - JOUR
T1 - Preference for natural borders in rice paddies by two treefrog species
AU - Groffen, Jordy
AU - Borzée, Amaël
AU - Jang, Yikweon
N1 - Funding Information:
This works was supported financially by a grant from the Rural Development Administration of Korea (PJ012285) and a Research Grant by the National Research Foundation of Korea [grant number 2017R1A2B2003579] to YJ.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 The Author(s).
PY - 2018/6/2
Y1 - 2018/6/2
N2 - In the Republic of Korea, one of the biggest threats to amphibians is habitat modification such as urbanisation and land conversion. With the loss of natural habitats, rice paddies play an important role as substitute habitats for amphibians that originally inhabited wetlands. However, since the 70’s, traditional rice agriculture has been modernised, leading to an increase in the number of concrete ditches and roads bordering rice paddies. This modernisation could have affected the distribution and density of amphibians. In this study, we investigated the preferred position, based on the advertisement calls for two treefrog species (Dryophytes japonicus and D. suweonensis), in relation to different types of borders such as natural ditch, concrete ditch, one-lane dirt road and vegetation. The results show that treefrogs seem to avoid rice paddies with concrete ditches, and with no ditch, which provided no resting microhabitat. The sides of the paddies preferred by the two treefrog species were the ones with vegetation of 30 cm wider or higher, while the two species seemed to avoid the side of paddies with roads. Our results are important for the conservation of anuran species in rice paddies in general as it highlights the need for vegetated areas, preferentially along natural ditches.
AB - In the Republic of Korea, one of the biggest threats to amphibians is habitat modification such as urbanisation and land conversion. With the loss of natural habitats, rice paddies play an important role as substitute habitats for amphibians that originally inhabited wetlands. However, since the 70’s, traditional rice agriculture has been modernised, leading to an increase in the number of concrete ditches and roads bordering rice paddies. This modernisation could have affected the distribution and density of amphibians. In this study, we investigated the preferred position, based on the advertisement calls for two treefrog species (Dryophytes japonicus and D. suweonensis), in relation to different types of borders such as natural ditch, concrete ditch, one-lane dirt road and vegetation. The results show that treefrogs seem to avoid rice paddies with concrete ditches, and with no ditch, which provided no resting microhabitat. The sides of the paddies preferred by the two treefrog species were the ones with vegetation of 30 cm wider or higher, while the two species seemed to avoid the side of paddies with roads. Our results are important for the conservation of anuran species in rice paddies in general as it highlights the need for vegetated areas, preferentially along natural ditches.
KW - Amphibians
KW - Conservation
KW - Dryophytes japonicus
KW - Dryophytes suweonensis
KW - Hylids
KW - Modernisation
KW - Threats
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85047937933&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/19768354.2018.1475301
DO - 10.1080/19768354.2018.1475301
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85047937933
VL - 22
SP - 205
EP - 211
JO - Animal Cells and Systems
JF - Animal Cells and Systems
SN - 1976-8354
IS - 3
ER -