Assessing Habitat Suitability for Günther''s Frog (Hylarana guentheri) in the Farm-Pond Landscape of Chiayi County, Taiwan.

• Main Authors: Shin-Ruoh Juang, 莊欣若
• Other Authors: Chen-Fa Wu
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/21404342558125365567

碩士 === 中興大學 === 景觀與遊憩碩士學位學程 === 103 === The early and main functions of farm-ponds in Taiwan were agricultural irrigation and water supply for livelihood. As time goes by, the agricultural irrigation systems and technology of water supply got improved so the existing farm-ponds lost their original functions gradually. In response to the industrial development, most of the farm-ponds turn into breeding pools or are filled for construction. However, farm-pond is important habitat for aquatic organism and amphibians. Once the environment of farm-pond get damaged or significant change, it will cause serious impact on the ecosystem. In farm-pond, frog is highly sensitive to environmental changes so it can be described as indicator organism. Therefore, this study aims to assess habitat suitability for Günther''s frog (Hylarana guentheri) in farm-pond landscape. Besides, we’ll propose the policies for habitat improvement from a standpoint of vulnerability. With fuzzy Delphi method, we first established habitat assessment framework and indicators weights of Günther''s frog in farm-ponds in Chiayi county, and the result determines 4 first-level items (“farm-pond water environment”, “farm-pond land environment”, “degree of link between farm-ponds” and “residents’ attitude”), 10 second-level indicators, in which “the number of plant species within 100m of farm-pond land surrounding” is assessed as the most important, followed by “if the farm-pond links the near another one”. We investigated frog species and amount in 69 farm-ponds in Chiayi county from 2013 winter to 2015 spring. Meanwhile, we scored and marked with the assessment indicators for Günther''s frog in each farm-pond. The result shows that there are 17 farm-ponds (24.64%) with higher habitat suitability which are mainly located in Lucao township, Dalin township and Singang township. We also found that when the weighted assessment value greater than 2.645, the farm-pond is more likely to occur Günther''s frog. This classification with overall accuracy of 81.16% indicates a high degree of confidence. Furthermore, comparing the weighted assessment value with the amount of Günther''s frog, we found that there are 13 farm-ponnds (18.84%) as “high habitat suitability and having more Günther''s frogs“ which should be given priority to be conserved, 3 farm-ponds (4.35%) as “low habitat suitability but having more Günther''s frogs“, 43 farm-ponds (62.32%) as “low habitat suitability and having less Günther''s frogs”, and 10 farm-ponds (14.49%) as “high habitat suitability but having less Günther''s frogs”. The follow-up action is to improve the habitat conditions to conserve and restore Günther''s frog. In conclusion, with the method in this study, we can assess which farm-pond should be conserved, and judge the farm-pond habitat having Günther''s frog or not. In addition, we propose constructing farm-pond as Günther''s frog habitat through matrix analysis and case comparison.