The Western Ghats (WG), one of the world’s eight ‘hottest hotspots’ of biological diversity, is a stretch of 1600-km-long mountain range in India. The Western Ghats harbours a very high diversity and endemism of amphibians and reptiles. The habitats of most of the endemic anuran amphibians of Western Ghats are being destroyed or altered by human interventions. We looked at how forest degradation is impacting herpetofauna in Western Ghats and found that loss of forests to monoculture plantations and urbanisation, forest fragmentation due to infrastructure development, tourism in forest areas, loss of microhabitats, degradation of water bodies through chemical contamination from agriculture fields, introduction and naturalisation of exotic species, mining, climate change, and diseases are the main reasons for the population decline of herpetofauna in the Western Ghats. In this chapter, we are presenting a non-comprehensive review of studies on the impact of forest degradation on the herpetofauna of Western Ghats for identifying some of the pertinent research gaps.

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Effects of Forest Degradation on Herpetofauna in the Western Ghats Biodiversity Hotspot, India

  • Anjitha Devarajan,
  • Nandu VS

摘要

The Western Ghats (WG), one of the world’s eight ‘hottest hotspots’ of biological diversity, is a stretch of 1600-km-long mountain range in India. The Western Ghats harbours a very high diversity and endemism of amphibians and reptiles. The habitats of most of the endemic anuran amphibians of Western Ghats are being destroyed or altered by human interventions. We looked at how forest degradation is impacting herpetofauna in Western Ghats and found that loss of forests to monoculture plantations and urbanisation, forest fragmentation due to infrastructure development, tourism in forest areas, loss of microhabitats, degradation of water bodies through chemical contamination from agriculture fields, introduction and naturalisation of exotic species, mining, climate change, and diseases are the main reasons for the population decline of herpetofauna in the Western Ghats. In this chapter, we are presenting a non-comprehensive review of studies on the impact of forest degradation on the herpetofauna of Western Ghats for identifying some of the pertinent research gaps.