Habitat preferences and species diversity of anuran amphibians of Gaya India

Abstract

The amphibian fauna of Bihar is very less studied as compared to the nearby states like West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh. It was also found that very less work has been conducted on the amphibian diversity of Bihar particularly Gaya. Any literature and publication is not available about the amphibian diversity of Gaya district. However the Gaya district is very rich in biodiversity. This district is land locked district its boarder meets with Jharkhand state in south and south eastern part. This area of Gaya district having high mountains with dense forest cover interspersed with patchy grassland and uneven patches of Bamboo grooves. The grassland and forest cover provides very suitable habitation for amphibian species. Rest of the areas of Gaya district is plain land utilizes for agricultural purpose as well for human habitation. The Gaya District with Barachatti and Dumaria dense forest showing high percent of rainfall, more humidity and low temperature as well the mixed scrub forest and deciduous forest. The plain land of Gaya district used for variety of crop pattern such as Paddy (Oryza sativa), Wheat (Triticum aestivum), Maize (Zea mays), Mung (Vigna radiata), Pigeon pea (Citer species) and sunflower (Helianthus annuus) provides the ideal environment and habitats for the amphibians. These variety of habitatas are the home to diverse group of amphibian species and also used for various purposes such as food and home ground etc. These sites of Gaya district are rich in herpatofauna (Amphibians and reptiles) co- inhibiting with wide range of biodiversity of different other species.1 Due to deforestation and changing in agricultural pattern of this area ¬adversely affect the various fauna of this area but its impact on amphibian fauna is remaining unknown in the study area. There are 8,230 Amphibians species have been reported around the world,2 out of which 439 amphibian species (398 frogs, 2 salamanders and 39 caecilians) found in India.3 Recently Denesh et al.,4 prepared a checklist of amphibian species found in India and described them,4 however there is very less description about the amphibian species of Bihar state.