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Landscape and local correlates with two green tree-frogs, Rhacophorus (Amphibia: Rhacophoridae) in different habitats, central Japan

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Abstract

Changes in land-use and local factors have strong influences on amphibian distributions. However, the effects of both combined factors on assemblages are still unclear. The green tree-frogs, Rhacophorus, are sensitive to differences in landscape fragmentation. Herein, two species of Rhacophorus schlegelii and Rhacophorus arboreus have been surveyed, along the ecological gradient ranging from paddy-dominated plains to forest-dominated mountains (located in Toyota, Okazaki, and Shinshiro, central Japan). The effects of landscape and local factors on the existence of the above frogs were investigated using generalized linear models (GLMs); the Akaike Information Criteria (AIC) were used for model selection. The lowest AIC for R. schlegelii and R. arboreus were obtained at a 250-m-radius and 500-m-radius buffers, respectively. Habitat selections of each species showed distinct results in the paddy-field vs. ponds group. Nevertheless, both species exhibited a high abundance with increasing elevation and forest cover. At the local level, R. schlegelii displayed positive relationships with the presence of trees and the proportion of embankment vegetation. Our findings demonstrate that each species responded to various landscape scale and spatial composition, habitat, and species-dependent achievements of appropriate management actions to improve restoration practices are required.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and editors for their constructive comments from which our manuscript has benefited dramatically. The financial support made the present study was from JSPS KAKENHI (Grant No. 16H04735). According to the Scientists Center for Animal Welfare (SCAW), this work belongs to category A, "Experiments involving no living materials". We especially thank Rhys Nicholls and Shan Zhong, for proof reading the English of the manuscript. We thank Dr. N. Ramamonjisoa, Dr. Sakiko Matsumoto, and Shiho Koyama for the idea of using statistical analyses. Finally, X.J. Zheng is grateful to the scholarship from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) of Japan.

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  1. Ecology Group, Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, 464-8601, Japan

    Xiaojun Zheng & Yosihiro Natuhara

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  1. Xiaojun Zheng
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  2. Yosihiro Natuhara
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Correspondence to Xiaojun Zheng.

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Zheng, X., Natuhara, Y. Landscape and local correlates with two green tree-frogs, Rhacophorus (Amphibia: Rhacophoridae) in different habitats, central Japan. Landscape Ecol Eng 16, 199–206 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11355-019-00406-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11355-019-00406-6

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