With agricultural demands increasing globally, determining the nature of impacts of different forms of agriculture on biodiversity, especially for threatened vertebrates and habitats, is critical to inform land management. This is especially true for open ecosystems such as the natural rock outcrops and amphibians, both of which are threatened by land‐use change. Lateritic plateaus of the northern Western Ghats are rock outcrop ecosystems harboring endemic biodiversity. Since most of these plateaus are located outside protected areas and officially classified as wastelands, they are rapidly lost due to multiple human pressures, including agriculture. We compared amphibian composition, diversity, and species responses across these rocky plateaus (hereafter plateaus), orchards, and rice paddy in the Western Ghats‐Sri Lanka biodiversity Hotspot, India. We sampled 50 belt transects across four geographically separated plateaus, covering three land‐use classes in three of the plateaus, and recorded information on amphibians and their microhabitats. Each transect was sampled four times across the rainy season. We compared responses of amphibians across three land‐use categories at the community level using Hill numbers, beta‐diversity measures, and nonmetric multidimensional scaling, and at the species level using joint species distribution modeling. Converting plateaus to paddy and orchards significantly altered microhabitat availability by reducing the rock pool habitat availability in paddy and orchards, and increased deep, water‐submerged areas and grass cover in paddy. Conversion to paddy mostly had species‐ and community‐level impacts, that is, lowered species occurrence of certain species, lowered species richness, and more nested communities, whereas conversion to orchards mostly had species‐level impacts, that is, lowered species occurrence, highlighting that different forms of agriculture have varying impacts on amphibians that can be determined by examining community‐ and species‐level effects simultaneously. Using only community‐ or species‐level metrics would not have unraveled these impacts completely. We show that large rock pools are critical microhabitats for frogs, most likely serving as refugia and protecting frogs from desiccation during dry spells in monsoons. Since Indian lateritic plateau habitats in low elevations are rapidly being converted to orchards, efforts are needed to conserve them in partnership with local communities, the custodians of these habitats.

中文翻译：

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果园和水稻对岩石露头的两栖动物产生差异：来自群落和物种水平响应的见解


随着全球农业需求的增加，确定不同形式的农业对生物多样性的影响性质，特别是对受威胁的脊椎动物和栖息地的影响，对于为土地管理提供信息至关重要。对于天然岩石露头和两栖动物等开放生态系统尤其如此，它们都受到土地利用变化的威胁。西高止山脉北部的红土高原是露头的岩石生态系统，拥有特有的生物多样性。由于这些高原大多位于保护区之外并被官方归类为荒地，因此由于包括农业在内的多种人类压力，它们迅速消失。我们比较了印度西高止山脉-斯里兰卡生物多样性热点地区这些岩石高原（以下简称高原）、果园和稻田的两栖动物组成、多样性和物种响应。我们在四个地理上分离的高原上采样了 50 个带状图样带，涵盖了其中三个高原的三个土地利用类别，并记录了两栖动物及其微生境的信息。每个样带在整个雨季采样四次。我们使用 Hill 数、β 多样性测量和非度量多维尺度在群落层面比较了两栖动物在三个土地利用类别中的响应，并在物种层面使用联合物种分布模型进行了比较。将高原转变为水稻和果园通过减少水田和果园的岩石池栖息地可用性，并增加水田的深水淹没区域和草覆盖率，显著改变了微生境的可用性。 转为水稻主要具有物种和群落水平的影响，即某些物种的物种出现率降低，物种丰富度降低，群落嵌套增加，而转为果园主要具有物种水平的影响，即物种出现率降低，突出了不同形式的农业对两栖动物的不同影响，这可以通过同时检查群落和物种水平的影响来确定。仅使用群落或物种层面的指标并不能完全揭示这些影响。我们表明，大型岩石池是青蛙的重要微栖息地，很可能用作避难所，并在季风的干旱时期保护青蛙免受干燥。由于低海拔地区的印度红土高原栖息地正在迅速转变为果园，因此需要与当地社区合作，努力保护它们，这些栖息地的守护者。