Habitat occupancy patterns and activity rate of native mammals in tropical fragmented peat swamp reserves in Peninsular Malaysia

Abstract

Intensive land use plays a major role in tropical peat swamp deforestation in Southeast Asia. In Peninsular Malaysia, the North Selangor Peat Swamp Forest (NSPSF) is the second largest remaining peatland ecosystem. Although the NSPSF is recognized as a biodiversity hotspot area in the region, this peat swamp forest is rapidly shrinking because of the expansion of commercial oil palm agriculture. More than 87% of the NSPSF has been designated as reserves, but in reality, this is not comparable to protected area status. The NSPSF is under constant threats from forest conversions, forest fires, and road constructions. Faunal biodiversity loss is likely to occur in the NSPSF unless immediate action is taken by stakeholders. To determine the habitat occupancy and activity rate of native mammals, we conducted camera-trap survey at 45 sites located within the NSPSF. From a total survey effort of 2565 trap nights in an area of 778 km2, 16 mammal species were recorded. Our data provide vital information on the occupancy of high conservation value species in the NSPSF. However, we did not record Sumatran rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) and Malayan tiger (Panthera tigris), nor did we find any indirect evidence such as footprints, indicating that these species are extirpated from this region. We found that mammal activity rate responded differently to in situ habitat quality and landscape factors according to feeding guild. Government stakeholders should focus on prohibiting further forest conversion and prioritize the upgrading NSPSF's conservation status from reserve to protected area.

Households Preferences and Willingness to Pay for Watershed Services Attributes in North Selangor Peat Swamp Forest Malaysia

“…PES is a new conservation technique that focuses on In addition, the watershed recharge water downstream into Sungai Bernam and Sungai Tengi that drains into the main canal and the tertiary canals, and to the agricultural drain land of the Barat Laut Selangor irrigation area to ensure the supply of adequate and clean water for domestic and irrigation purposes. This watershed is seriously threaten as a result of human activities, couple with reduction in rainfall (Drought) (Aint1ddin and Goh, 2010;Sasidhran et al, 2016). Consequently, reduce water inflow which poses threat to sustainable supply of water for irrigation and domestic uses in the area.…”

Urban forest fragmentation impoverishes native mammalian biodiversity in the tropics

“…This might be the result of the presence of various competitors including omnivores and herbivores in the contiguous forest which control the wild boar population (Ickes, 2001;Magintan et al, 2017). The absence of large predators such as Panthera tigris and Panthera pardus in three forest patches would also have resulted in higher wild boar detections as shown in other studies (Ickes, 2001;Lopucki & Kitowski, 2017;Sasidhran et al, 2016) T. kanchil in the study sites (Ballantyne, Gudes, & Pickering, 2014;Granados et al, 2016;McShea et al, 2009;Meijaard & Sheil, 2008).…”

“…Thirteen variables were counted, measured, or determined as follows: (a) the number of trees with DBH less than 5 cm; (b) the number of trees with DBH between 5 cm to 30 cm; (c) the number of trees with DBH between 30 cm to 50 cm; (d) the number of trees with DBH greater than 50 cm; (e) the number of palm; (f) the number of trees with liana; (g) the number of shrubs, that is, woody plants with multiple stems and stand less than 6 m; (h) the number of dead standing trees; (i) the number of dead fallen trees; (j) canopy cover; (k) altitude; (l) proximity to human settlement, measured using Google Earth Pro; and (m) habitat type (e.g., contiguous forest, Patch 1, Patch 2, and Patch 3). We followed Sasidhran et al () and Adila et al () to justify the selection of the variables.…”

“…Besides maintaining ecosystem functions such as pollination and pest control, remnant forest patches in human-modified landscape are important for providing refugia for wildlife after deforestation (Adila et al, 2017;Ahumada et al, 2011;Brodie et al, 2015;Granados, Crowther, Brodie, & Bernard, 2016;Sasidhran et al, 2016). Remnant patches contribute positively to species persistence as part of a meta-population according to source-sink dynamics (Antonini, Martins, Aguiar, & Loyola, 2013;Brodie et al, 2015;Soga, Tamaura, Koike, & Gaston, 2014).…”

“…While there has been a lot of research globally, on the impact of fragmentation (e.g., Anderson et al, 2007;Sodhi et al, 2010;Seto, Güneralp, & Hutyra, 2012;Newbold et al, 2015), yet the impacts of fragmentation due to urbanization in tropical forest landscapes are less studied (e.g., Azhar, Lindenmayer, Wood, Fischer, & Zakaria, 2014;Sasidhran et al, 2016;Adila et al, 2017). Densely populated urban matrix is likely to be more inhospitable to forest species compared to less populated agricultural matrix (Azhar et al, 2015;Poessel, Breck, & Gese, 2016).…”