Local and landscape characteristics shape amphibian communities across production landscapes in the Western Ghats

Global tropical forests have been modified and fragmented by commodity agroforests, leading to significant alterations in ecological communities. Nevertheless, these production landscapes offer secondary habitats that support and sustain local biodiversity. In this study, we assess community level and species-specific responses of amphibians to land management in areca, coffee and rubber, three of the largest commodity agroforests in the Western Ghats.
A total of 106 agroforests across a 30,000 km2 landscape were surveyed for amphibians using a combination of visual and auditory encounter surveys. We used a Bayesian multi-species occupancy modeling framework to examine patterns of species richness, beta diversity, dominance structure and individual species occupancies. The influence of biogeographic variables such as elevation and latitude as well as microhabitat availability of streams, ponds and unpaved plantation roads were tested on amphibian species occupancy. 
Coffee agrofo...