Species Diversity, Abundance and Habitat Distribution of Anurans in Mts. Palay-Palay Mataas-Na-Gulod Protected Landscape, Luzon Island, Philippines
Mt. Palay-Palay is Cavite’s only protected landscape and yet very few herpetological studies have been done in this area. Thus, the study aims to provide robust ecological data on different anuran species so that an effective conservation and management plan could be formulated. Five habitats were sampled using a combination of cruising transect, stratified random strip transect sampling, time-constrained searches, visual encounter survey (VES) and acoustic encounter survey (AES). A total of 1528 individuals belonging to 12 species was recorded from the study area. In addition to previous works, 2 Platymantis spp. were new records bringing the total species richness to 16. Of the 16 species, 10 (62.5%) are endemic to the Philippines. Among the species, Platymantis mimulus was the most abundant and also had the highest density of 174 frogs ha-1. Among the habitats riparian forests had highest species diversity, Mau Tao and Jackknife1 values which showed dependence of anurans on water. Of the 17 microhabitats, forest floor litter was the most occupied by anurans.