Observations and documentation of amphibian diversity from a human-modified ecosystem of Darjeeling, with record occurrence of Pol-ypedates himalayanus from Darjeeling Hills, West Bengal

Abstract

A survey was carried out to document the amphibian diversity at Takdah Cantonment (27°02'N-88°21'E) in Kurseong Subdivision of District Darjeeling, West Bengal, India, an integral part of the Eastern Himalayas. Time constrained visual encounter survey (VES) method was used for sampling amphibians from all possible habitats of the study area. A total of nine species of amphibians belonging to four families across five genera were recorded during the study. Polypedates himalayanus was also for the first time recorded from Darjeeling Hills. This study reveals that the area which is at an elevation of 1440-1650m is rich in amphibian diversity. Further studies are needed on population structure, habitat use by amphibians for better understanding and also imposition of several conservation strategies in Darjeeling district of West Bengal is needed.

Full text

Asian Journal of Conservation Biology, July 2018. Vol. 7 No. 1, pp. 66–72 AJCB: SC0028
ISSN 2278-7666 ©TCRP 2018
Observations and documentation of amphibian diversity from a human
-modified ecosystem of Darjeeling, with record occurrence of Pol-
ypedates himalayanus from Darjeeling Hills, West Bengal
Aditya Pradhan1, Rujas Yonle1* & Dawa Bhutia1
1 Post Graduate Department of Zoology, Environmental Biology Laboratory , Darjeeling Government College,
Darjeeling 734101, West Bengal, India.
(Accepted: June 25, 2018)
ABSTRACT
A survey was carried out to document the amphibian diversity at Takdah Cantonment (27°02’N-88°21’E) in
Kurseong Subdivision of District Darjeeling, West Bengal, India, an integral part of the Eastern Himalayas.
Time constrained visual encounter survey (VES) method was used for sampling amphibians from all possible
habitats of the study area. A total of nine species of amphibians belonging to four families across five genera
were recorded during the study. Polypedates himalayanus was also for the first time recorded from Darjee-
ling Hills. This study reveals that the area which is at an elevation of 1440 -1650m is rich in amphibian diver-
sity. Further studies are needed on population structure, habitat use by amphibians for better understanding
and also imposition of several conservation strategies in Darjeeling district of West Bengal is needed.
Key words: Amphibian, diversity, Darjeeling, Takdah Cantonment, VES, relative abundance.
INTRODUCTION
The first vertebrate animals are amphibians and they
have two life stages namely tadpoles (occur in water)
and adults (on land). As it is known that amphibians are
comprised of frogs, toads, caecilians and salamanders
those are extremely varied. Many habitat types may oc-
cur within an area, but amphibians may utilize only a
few of these. The number of individuals that represents
each species in community may vary from place to place
depending on the amount of rainfall, available habitats
and human interference as the structure and diversity of
an amphibian community is determined by the availabil-
ity of food, moisture and micro habitat (Daniels, 1992).
Amphibians are potentially good bio-indicators due to
their highly permeable skin and dual mode of life
(Beebee and Griffiths 2005). The amphibian fauna com-
prises 7788 species in the world (Frost, 2018). In India
405 species belonging to existing orders, namely Cauda-
ta, Anura and Gymnophiona were reported. In West
Bengal 45 species belonging to 14 genera, seven fami-
lies and three orders were identified (Deuti et al., 2009).
Published comprehensive lists of amphibians of the
study area are very less. Daniel (1962) gave account of
seven species of amphibians of Darjeeling area of West
Bengal. Sarkar et al., (1992) published list of amphibi-
ans of the state of West Bengal where they included 30
species of amphibians from Darjeeling district. Dinesh
et al. (2009) in the list of amphibians of India included
some species from Darjeeling district. Similarly, 44 spe-
cies of amphibians belonging to 20 genera in eight fami-
lies and three orders have been reported in adjoining
state of Sikkim from 1864 to 2015 (Subba et al., 2016).
About 30% - 57% of the amphibians in India are threat-
ened due to loss of natural habitats. So far, presence of
*Corresponding Author’s E-mail: rujasyonle@gmail.com 66
37 species of amphibians under 18 genera, eight fami-
lies and three orders has been described from Darjeeling
district, West Bengal (De, 2016).
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Study area
The study was conducted in Takdah Cantonment (27°
02’N-88°21’E) in the outskirts of Darjeeling town about
27 km away, located between Kalimpong and Darjee-
ling, with an elevation of < 1440 to > 1650m, which is
also an integral part of Eastern Himalayas (Fig. 1).
The study area included human settlements, agricultural
land, streams and forests.
Vegetation and Climate
The Study area has an average elevation of 1550m and
thus has sub-tropical moist evergreen forest type. Some
dominants trees found here are Cryptomeria japonica,
Exbucklandia populnea, Alnus nepalensis, Ficus hook-
eri, Elaeocarpus varunua, Pentapanax leschenaultia,
Erythrina arborescens, Castanopsis hystrix, etc. while
some commonly found shrubs are Polygonum molle,
Girardinia palmate, Rubus paniculatus, Rubus ellipti-
cus, Fragaria nubicola, Sinarundinaria maling, Urtica
dioca, etc.
There are no major rivers draining the forest
but numerous non-perennial streams run through some
parts of the forest, keeping the forest floor wet and
damp for most of the time in the year. Summer, mon-
soon and post monsoon seasons are accompanied by
fogs and mist. Monsoon months lasting from May –
September, is characterized by heavy rainfall 2-3 times
a day and sometimes rain spells lasts for more than 72
hours.

In 2017-18, the study area received highest rainfall
(about 1616mm) in the month of May followed by Sep-
tember (1467mm), it also experiences hail storms in the
summer months. While the winter months were dry with
just occasional winter showers mostly in the month of
February. With an average temperature of 23°C, August
was the warmest month, while January was the coldest
month of the year with an average temperature of 9°C
(World Weather Online, 2018).
Sampling
Field sampling was done from March 2017 to February
2018 in Takdah Cantonment, Darjeeling hills.
We followed time constrained visual encounter
survey (VES) method in the study area following Heyer
et al., (1994) and Chettri et al. (2011) for sampling am-
phibians in all probable habitats and microhabitats, such
as agricultural fields, wet lands, rocky areas, open lands,
boulders, logs and mosses. We conducted counts and
took photographs while walking along the main road and
various other pony roads and trek routes in the study
area. The observations were mostly carried out during
the day (10:00 hrs to 13:00 hrs) and evening (17:00 hrs
to 19:00 hrs), however hours of heavy rainfall were
avoided. Individuals of the same species found more
than once in the same site in the same visit was not
counted if not observed together at the same time. In
addition, opportunistic observations were also included.
The parameters noted during observation include name
of the species, number of individuals of that species and
habitat in which the species was found.
The species were identified by using Liu (1950), Daniels
(1962), Sarkar et al. (1992), and Sanyal et al. (2006). In
cases where instant identification was not possible,
photographs were taken and sent to experts for identifica-
tion. Scientific names and systematic position followed
in this paper are after, Frost (2017) and common names
are obtained from , Dinesh et al. (2009) and De (2016).
We completed a total of 24 visits to the study area (two
in each month during the study period) totaling 158 sam-
pling hours. No collection of amphibian specimens was
done during this study in Darjeeling.
Data Analysis
Community parameters such as species richness, abun-
dance, Shannon-Weiner diversity index and evenness
were calculated for total samples following Magurran &
McGill (2011). Species richness was considered as the
total number of species observed and species abundance
as number of individual amphibians counted during the
sampling. Relative abundance of each species encoun-
tered during the survey was also calculated as done by
Chettri et al. (2011). Based on these data, relative abun-
dance of each species was obtained. The diversity was
analyzed using Shannon–Wiener diversity index (H′) = –
Σ pilnpi; where pi = proportion of total sample belonging
to ith species, ln= natural logarithm (Shannon & Weaver
1949). Similarly, evenness was calculated using the for-
mula: Evenness (J) = H′/Hmax where Hmax= lnS, S =
number of species, H′ = Shannon–Wiener Diversity
(Pielou 1969). To understand dominance in the commu-
nity Dominance (D), Simpson’s index (1-D) and Berger-
Parker Dominance (d) were calculated using Past 3.19
(Hammer et al., 2001).
RESULTS
Species richness, diversity and abundance
The present study could only manage to record species of
Order Anura. A total of 48 individuals representing nine
Pradhan et al
67
AJCB Vol. 7 No. 1, pp. 66–72, 2018
Figure 1. Map showing the position of the study area and satellite image of a fraction of Darjeeling – Sikkim
Himalayas showing the Study Area. (Source: Google Maps)

species belonging to four families and five genera were
recorded with photographic evidences (Image 1-9).
Among the four families recorded, highest number of
species (three) belonged to the family Megophryidae and
Rhacophoridae and lowest number of species (one) was
recorded from the family Bufonidae (Table 1). The am-
phibian population in the study area was found to be
diverse when tested using various diversity indices
(Table 2).
Relative abundance of amphibian species in the
study area shows sparse distribution (Table 1). Barring a
few species, relative abundance of most species was low.
Most species were observed only once or twice during
the entire course of our study. Of the nine species, four
species contributed less than 3% population. Almost half
of the total abundance was contributed by single species
i.e. Duttaphrynus himalayanus (43.75 %) followed by
Megophrys robusta (22.9 %). This result supports well
established community pattern i.e. a community is domi-
nated by few common species (Heatwole, 1982; Ma-
gurran, 1988; Chettri et al., 2011).
The species accumulation curve was rising even at
the end of the study period indicating likelihood of detec-
tion of additional species from the study area (Fig. 3). It
indicates that there was a probability of encountering few
additional species in the study area with the increasing
sampling effort.
Habitat preferences among species
In the present study we identified variety of amphibian
species utilizing five different habitats namely - Agricul-
tural land (six species), Open land (one species), Human
settlements (four species), Water bodies (one species)
and Forest floor (five species). Here, Human Settlements
includes houses, veranda, drains, etc.; Agricultural land
includes cultivated and uncultivated crop fields; Forest
floor includes bushes, trees, leaf litter, etc; Water bodies
includes streams, ponds and small water puddles; Open
land includes land devoid of vegetation.
Among these maximum number of species was
observed in the Agriculture land (35%) followed by For-
est floor (29%), Human settlements (24%), Water bodies
(6%) and Open land (6%) (Fig. 2). This indicates that
most of the amphibian species require agriculture based
ecosystems for survival. Since this study was conducted
in an area with increasing number of human settlements,
human settlements contributed to the second most uti-
lized habitat, this also shows that few amphibian species
have adapted to human interference.
Polypedates himalayanus from Darjeeling Hills
68
Im-
age
No.
Taxon Common Name Total Relative
Abundance
*Habitat IUCN Red
List (Ver.
3.1)
Bufonidae
5a Duttaphrynus himalayanus
Günther, 1864
Himalayan Toad 21 43.75 % Ag, Hs,
Wb, Ol
LC
Rhacophoridae
5b Polypedates himalayanus
Boulenger, 1888
Himalayan bush Frog 1 2.08 % Ff LC
5c Raorchestes annandalii
(Boulenger, 1906)
Annandale’s bush Frog 3 6.25 % Ag, Ff LC
5d Raorchestes sp. - 1 2.08 % Ff -
Megophryidae
5e Megophrys glandulosa
Fei et al., 1990
Glandular Horned Toad 5 10.41 % Ag, Ff LC
5f Megophrys robusta
Boulenger, 1908
Robust Spadefoot Toad 11 22.91 % Hs, Ag,
Ff
DD
5g Megophrys sanu
Deuti et al., 2017
Small Horned Toad 1 2.08 % Ag -
Dicroglossidae
5h Nanorana annandalii
Boulenger, 1920
Boulenger’s Hill Frog 1 2.08 % Hs NT
5i Nanorana liebigii
Günther, 1860
Himalayan Bull Frog 4 8.33 % Ag, Hs LC
Total Species richness = 9
Total Abundance = 48
Table 1. List of Amphibian species recorded during the study and their habitat preferences. Number represents
the abundances of amphibians observed during the study.
Diversity Indices Calculated Values
Species richness 9
Abundance 48
Dominance (D) 0.2674
Simpson’s index (1-D) 0.7326
Shannon-Weiner index (H’) 1.638
Evenness (J) 0.7455
Berger-Parker (d) 0.4375
Table 2. Species richness, abundance, diversity and
evenness of amphibians observed in the study area dur-
ing the survey.
AJCB Vol. 7 No. 1, pp. 66–72, 2018

Season of encounter
Amphibians were encountered in eight of the 12 months
of the study period (Fig. 4), while the months of October,
November, December and February did not see any indi-
viduals even though sampling was as intense as any oth-
er months. Maximum number of individuals was record-
ed in May (14 individuals), followed by June (12 indi-
viduals). Similarly, monsoon (May-Aug) saw the highest
number of individuals (26 individuals) when counted
seasonally, followed by summer (Mar-May), in which 17
individuals were encountered. This shows that like any
other place, one can expect to find the highest number of
amphibians once there is rainfall in the region.
Account on encountered families and species
Family Bufonidae
This family was only represented by Duttaphrynus hima-
layanus (5a.), however this species was encountered the
most (21 individuals) during the survey (Table 1). Indi-
viduals of this species at different stages of growth were
encountered during the study.
Family Megophryidae
This family was only represented by three species be-
longing to the same genus Megophrys. The most com-
monly encountered genus during the study was
Megophrys. A total of four species of Megophrys have
been identified from the Darjeeling District (De, 2016),
of which only two species (Megophrys parva and
Megophrys glandulosa) were recorded earlier (Sarkar et
al., 1992) and later one more species (Megophrys ro-
busta) was added to the recorded data of ZSI (Deuti et
al., 2009). Two new species (Megophrys sanu and
Megophrys katabhako) of this genus has also been re-
cently recorded by Deuti et al. (2017). In the present
study, a total of three different species (Megophrys ro-
busta, Megophrys glandulosa and Megophrys sanu) of
this genus were recorded photographically (Fig. 5e- 5g).
Megophrys robusta (Fig .5f) was the most encountered
(11 individuals) species from this genus (Table 1), this
species is placed under Data Deficient (DD) category
under IUCN Red List (IUCN, 2017). All the species of
this genus are considered to be extremely rare and diffi-
cult to find, however they seemed to be fairly common in
the months of July-September during the present survey
period.
Family Rhacophoridae
This family was represented by two genus- Raorchestes
and Polypedates. Two species of Raorchestes were en-
countered during the survey of which one species was
identified to be Raorchestes annandalii (Fig. 5c) while
the other could not be identified (Fig. 5d). Polypedates
himalayanus (Fig. 5b) was encountered during the month
of January which was the only amphibian recorded dur-
ing the winter months. This is also the first report of this
species from West Bengal, India as this species is neither
reported by De (2016) or Sarkar et al. (1992) from the
state. A single individual was encountered at an elevation
of 1600m and photographically recorded in the present
study.
Family Dicroglossidae
This family was only reperesented by two species Nano-
rana annandalii (Fig. 5h) and Nanorana liebigii (Fig. 5i).
Pradhan et al
69
Figure 2. Percent habitat utilization of amphibians
recorded during the study period
Figure 3. Number of species and individuals encountered in each month during the survey.
AJCB Vol. 7 No. 1, pp. 66–72, 2018

N. annandalii is the only species from the study to be
placed under Near Threatened (NT) category under
IUCN Red List (IUCN, 2017) and was sighted only
once. N. liebigii is the most sought after species of edible
frogs in the hills and is widely hunted by the locals and
four individuals were encountered in the present study.
DISCUSSION
Listing of amphibians of Darjeeling hills have appeared
in many compilations, data specific to Takdah Canton-
ment, Kurseong Sub division is hitherto unknown. No
prior study had been carried out in this region for estima-
tion of amphibian population, so this paper tries to esti-
mate the species richness of amphibians in this part of
Darjeeling hills. Even though the study was limited to a
very small portion of the Darjeeling hills, the present
study has managed to photographically document nine
amphibian species, which is 20% of total amphibian di-
versity of the whole Darjeeling district. Furthermore one
unrecorded species (Polypedates himalayaus) has also
been reported in this paper. This suggests that the study
area possesses rich amphibian diversity.
The region has many potential habitats for the am-
phibians to survive ranging from leaf litters in the forest
to wetland, springs and torrential streams. The forest
here is of moist evergreen temperate type. Heavy rainfall
in the region may also be responsible for providing re-
sources required for the survival of amphibians. Howev-
er, like any other place, even this part of Darjeeling dis-
trict has seen a sudden rise in human population in recent
years. Growing human settlements in the region has re-
sulted in habitat loss of different animals including am-
phibians. Also unpredictable rainfall, diseases, upward
migration of species along the elevation gradient and
drying of springs has resulted in decreasing population of
amphibians (Acharya & Chettri, 2012). More important-
ly, drying up of fast flowing streams is detrimental to
many Himalayan endemic species such as Nanorana
spp., Megophrys spp. (locally termed as ‘Paa’) which are
adapted to torrent streams. Due to their specific adapta-
tion to fast flowing waters, they are restricted to rapid
streams. Drying of these streams might gradually lead to
extinction of these species (Acharya & Chettri, 2012).
These species are also very commonly hunted in the re-
gion in the name of local medicine and other delicacies.
Amphibians are important to agriculturalists, they play a
key role in ecosystem functioning and act as predator,
mainly as consumers of insect pest. Amphibians are
mainly seen to be attracted to agricultural land as these
kinds of ecosystems can be used for food, home grounds,
etc (Narayana et al., 2014). Hence they must be protected
by the concerned authorities and awareness regarding the
present status of amphibians in the Himalayas must be
created among the locals.
ACKNOWLEGEMENTS
We thank all the local residents of Takdah Cantonment
for all the help during the study. We thank Dr. Kaushik
Deuti, Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata, for identify-
ing the amphibians encountered during the study. This
work would not have been possible without his help. We
also would like to thank Ms. Avantika Thapa for helping
us gather information during the initial part of the study
and Mr. Daman Pradhan for bringing extremely im-
portant information on fauna of Takdah Cantonment. We
also thank the Head of Post Graduate Department of Zo-
ology, Darjeeling Government College for all the sup-
port.
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