<p>Urbanization is an ongoing process and an important driver of land use changes globally. Cities expand at the expense of natural landscapes, thereby shaping the ecological communities within them. The Global South is urbanizing rapidly, and yet, little is known about the impacts on biodiversity, especially on smaller, less charismatic organisms such as amphibians. India is a megadiverse country with a large human population in growing cities. We surveyed one such city, Bengaluru, to document the anuran assemblage (frogs and toads). The city was characterized into gradients based on the proportion of built-up areas with grids measuring 4 km<sup>2</sup>, and we predicted lower species richness in the most built-up areas of the city. Further, we expected anuran composition to be associated with environmental variables at the landscape scale as well as the microhabitat scale. We encountered an anuran assemblage comprising 11 species across habitats such as wetlands, a public park, and an institutional campus. Species richness was lower in the city limits compared to locations surrounding it. At the landscape scale, sites farther from the city center had a positive effect on the anuran composition, whereas pollution had a negative effect. At the microhabitat scale, anuran composition was positively associated with the presence of submerged native aquatic plants and negatively associated with sewage in wetlands, but these trends were not statistically significant. These findings suggest either anuran assemblages are resilient to urbanization or that there is a lag phase before the impacts of urbanization on species compositions are detected. Nevertheless, our findings establish the critical baseline, allowing further research to track the impacts of urbanization on anurans.</p>

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Anuran assemblage in a rapidly urbanizing City in South Asia

  • K. S. Seshadri,
  • M. K. Vidisha,
  • Pushkar Ravindra Wagh,
  • H. S. Sudhira,
  • Maria Thaker

摘要

Urbanization is an ongoing process and an important driver of land use changes globally. Cities expand at the expense of natural landscapes, thereby shaping the ecological communities within them. The Global South is urbanizing rapidly, and yet, little is known about the impacts on biodiversity, especially on smaller, less charismatic organisms such as amphibians. India is a megadiverse country with a large human population in growing cities. We surveyed one such city, Bengaluru, to document the anuran assemblage (frogs and toads). The city was characterized into gradients based on the proportion of built-up areas with grids measuring 4 km2, and we predicted lower species richness in the most built-up areas of the city. Further, we expected anuran composition to be associated with environmental variables at the landscape scale as well as the microhabitat scale. We encountered an anuran assemblage comprising 11 species across habitats such as wetlands, a public park, and an institutional campus. Species richness was lower in the city limits compared to locations surrounding it. At the landscape scale, sites farther from the city center had a positive effect on the anuran composition, whereas pollution had a negative effect. At the microhabitat scale, anuran composition was positively associated with the presence of submerged native aquatic plants and negatively associated with sewage in wetlands, but these trends were not statistically significant. These findings suggest either anuran assemblages are resilient to urbanization or that there is a lag phase before the impacts of urbanization on species compositions are detected. Nevertheless, our findings establish the critical baseline, allowing further research to track the impacts of urbanization on anurans.