The expansion of industrial agriculture (oil palm) has significantly reduced lowland tropical diversity through direct loss or alteration of habitat, leading to habitat fragmentation and edge effects. Edge effects can have serious impacts on species diversity and community dynamics. To assess the effect of oil palm plantation edges on anuran communities in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, we surveyed anuran species and measured structural habitat and landscape parameters at 74 sites spread across forest and plantation habitats along the Kinabatangan River. We then evaluated how anuran species richness and assemblage composition varied in relation to these environmental parameters. Relative species richness was higher at forest sites, compared to oil palm plantation sites. Plantation sites were dominated by wide-ranging terrestrial species, and assemblage composition varied mostly in relation to standing surface water. Forest habitats supported both more endemic and arboreal species. Variability on anuran assemblage composition in forest habitats was greatest in relation to distance to forest edge followed by canopy density, which was also partially correlated with forest edge distance. Moreover, anuran species richness in forest habitats declined as proximity to the forest-plantation interface increased, and as canopy density decreased. Our study provides further evidence that oil palm plantations provide little conservation benefit to anurans. Furthermore, oil palm plantations appear to have adverse pervasive impacts on amphibian diversity considerable distances into adjacent forest areas. These findings suggest that in order for small patches or narrow corridors of retained forest in landscapes managed for oil palm to maintain biodiversity values in the long term, their sizes and widths need to adequately account for the considerable influence of edge effects.

中文翻译：

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油棕种植园对婆罗洲热带无尾蜥群落的边缘效应

工业农业（油棕）的扩张通过栖息地的直接丧失或改变，显着减少了低地热带多样性，导致栖息地破碎化和边缘效应。边缘效应会对物种多样性和群落动态产生严重影响。为了评估油棕种植园边缘对马来西亚婆罗洲沙巴的无尾动物群落的影响，我们调查了无尾动物物种，并测量了京那巴当岸河沿岸森林和种植园栖息地的 74 个地点的结构栖息地和景观参数。然后，我们评估了无尾目物种丰富度和组合组成如何随这些环境参数变化。与油棕种植园相比，森林地区的相对物种丰富度更高。种植园以广泛的陆地物种为主，组合组成的变化主要与地表水有关。森林栖息地支持更多的特有物种和树栖物种。森林生境中无尾类群落组成的变异性与到森林边缘的距离相关最大，其次是冠层密度，这也与森林边缘距离部分相关。此外，随着森林与人工林界面的距离增加以及冠层密度的降低，森林栖息地中的无尾目物种丰富度下降。我们的研究提供了进一步的证据，表明油棕种植园对无尾目动物几乎没有提供保护效益。此外，油棕种植园似乎对邻近森林地区相当远的两栖动物多样性产生了普遍的不利影响。这些发现表明，为了使油棕管理景观中的小片或狭窄的森林走廊能够长期保持生物多样性价值，它们的大小和宽度需要充分考虑边缘效应的相当大的影响。