Herpetofaunal Assemblages in the Lowland Regions of Sumatera Barat

Abstract

The habitat destruction and land-use changes caused the decline of animal composition in many tropical regions. Here, we study the diversity of herpetofauna in the lowland areas in Sumatera Barat, a midwestern province in Sumatera island, using a visual encounter survey method. The surveyed habitat included rubber plantations, streams, paddy fields, and peat swamps. We observed 338 individuals representing 44 species from 14 families of herpetofauna with almost 90% individuals were amphibians. Overall, the rubber plantations contained a higher number of species than other types of habitat. For amphibians, Ranidae and Dicroglossidae represented the first and the second highest both in the species and individual number. For reptiles, Agamidae and Colubridae or Gekkonidae accounted for the first and the second highest in the individual number while Colubridae and Scincidae consisted of the highest species number. Our data showed that the diversity index was mostly in moderate level except in paddy field. The species composition in rubber plantations were more similar to those of streams rather than paddy field or peat swamp Sago habitat.

New Data of Morphological Variation in Microhyla gadjahmadai Atmaja et al., 2018 (Anura: Microhylidae) from West Sumatra

“…Informasi tentang Microhyla gadjahmadai masih sangat terbatas, dan sampai sejauh ini, informasi tentang spesies ini hanya didapatkan dari Atmaja et al (2018). Berdasarkan studi yang sudah dilakukan sebelumnya di Sumatera Barat tidak ditemukan spesies M. gadjahmadai (Nugraha et al, 2020;Nugraha et al, 2021;Nugraha et al, 2022;Sapitri et al, 2023;dan Wulandari et al, 2023). Oleh karena itu, melalui penelitian ini kami melaporkan informasi baru tentang variasi morfologi dari M. gadjahmadai dari Sumatera Barat.…”

The effectiveness of the multi-soil-layering system in reducing pollutant parameters of crumb rubber industrial wastewater

“…The discharge of liquid waste by land can take place in physical, chemical and biological processes, it has been known from the past as an effective method and has been used as one of the natural wastewater treatments [17]. Processing of this method is very cheap, but it requires a large area of land when compared to modern systems [18]. Where this land is unlimited and the price is cheap, this system can easily be applied for wastewater treatment.…”

Common but ignored: a new species of Cyrtodactylus (Chordata, Reptilia, Squamata, Gekkonidae) from lowland Sumatra Barat, Indonesia

“… Milto and Bezman-Moseyko (2021) also surveyed the surroundings of Lake Maninjau, reporting two new records Limnonectes deinodon Dehling, 2014, Dicroglossidae and Sphenomorphus scotophilus (Boulenger, 1900) and one new species Cnemaspis calderana Milto & Bezman-Moseyko, 2021 for Sumatra and provided extended descriptions of Cyrtodactylus agamensis . Nugraha et al (2022) surveyed lowland habitat generally close to human settlement such as paddy fields, peat swamp near the coastline, streams and other plantations. They reported Cyrtodactylus sp.…”