Amphibians play a key role in structuring biological assemblages of agricultural landscapes, but they are threatened by global agricultural intensification. Landscape structure is an important variable influencing biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. However, in the Yangtze River Delta, where a ‘farmland-orchard-fishpond’ agricultural pattern is common, the effects of landscape construction on anuran populations are unclear. In this study, we examined the effects of agricultural landscape parameters on the abundance and body condition of the rice frog (Fejervarya multistriata), which is a dominant anuran species in farmland in China. Employing a visual encounter method, we surveyed rice frog abundance for three years across 20 agricultural landscapes. We also calculated the body condition index (BCI) of 188 male frog individuals from these agricultural landscapes. Landscape variables, comprising landscape compositional heterogeneity (using the Shannon diversity index of all land cover types except buildings and roads), landscape configurational heterogeneity (using landscape edge density), breeding habitat diversity (using the number of five waterbody types available as breeding habitats), and areas of forest were also measured for each 1-km radius landscape. We found that the amount of forest in each agricultural landscape had a significant positive relationship with rice frog abundance, and breeding habitat diversity was positively related to the BCI of male rice frogs. However, body condition was negatively impacted by landscape configurational heterogeneity. Our results suggested the importance of non-agricultural habitats in agricultural landscapes, such as waterbodies and forest, to benefit rice frog population persistence.
Natural wetlands in coastal areas have been reclaimed in China and other regions of Asia. The reclaimed lands have been used for large-scale industrial farming, replacing traditional farming methods, especially in rice fields. To understand the impact of land-use conversion on biodiversity, particularly of coastal migratory waterbirds, we selected two study sites in Chongming Island, China, representing traditional rice fields versus industrial rice farms. At each site, we carried out waterbird population surveys, measured the environmental factors hypothesized to be important in determining waterbird abundance, and analyzed the effects of the different farming patterns on waterbird populations. Over two annual cycles (from August 2013 to May 2015), 39 waterbird species were observed, with a mean density of 29.3 AE 5.4/ha, on traditional rice fields, compared with 16 species with a mean density of 2.8 AE 0.4/ha on large-scale industrial rice farms. Our results demonstrated that waterbird diversity was higher on traditional rice fields than on industrial rice farms. Analyses of habitat characteristics and waterbird populations showed that traditional rice fields had more preferred habitats for waterbirds, such as more open-water cover areas, lower bare mud cover areas, lower rice plant density, no concrete-covered areas and flooding in the winter. The results suggested that the replacement of traditional rice fields with large-scale industrial rice farms has had a significantly negative impact on migratory waterbirds using the East Asian-Australasian Flyway; such a change could also have detrimental effects on waterbird conservation efforts in China and other countries along this important migration route.
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