Abstract
The presence of amphibian larvae is restricted by both biotic and abiotic variables of the environment. Some of these variables are still undetermined in the septentrional eastern Palearctic where Rana amurensis, Strauchbufo raddei and Dryophytes japonicus are found in large numbers. In this study, we sampled 92 sites across Mongolia, Russia and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and measured biotic and abiotic water variables, as well as the height of flooded terrestrial and emergent aquatic vegetation at the breeding site. We determined that the presence of anuran larvae is generally, but not always, linked to pH and temperature. Rana amurensis was not significantly affected by any of the variables measured, while S. raddei was impacted by water conductivity and D. japonicus by pH, temperature and vegetation. Our results highlight a potential risk for these species due to the changes in aquatic variables in response to desertification.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 265-270 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Journal | Herpetozoa |
| Volume | 34 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We are grateful to Yoonjung Yi, Sungsik Kong, Minjee Choe, Kyungmin Kim, Desiree Andersen, Erdenetushig Purvee, Tumenkhuslen Munkhsaikhan and Solongo Gan-sukh for their help in the field. This project was supported by Rural Development Agency of Korea (PJ015071022021) to YJ. The research was partially supported by the budgetary project АААА-А21-121011390004-6 (Russia) to NS and the National Natural Science Foundation of China for Young Scientists (QN2021014013L) to AB.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Osterreichische Gesellschaft fur Herpetologie e.V.. All rights reserved.
Keywords
- Anuran larvae
- Conductivity
- PH
- Palearctic landscape
- Salinity
- Septentrional Asia
- Species occurrence
- Vegetation
- Water biotic and abiotic properties