Hydrosphere occupancy modeling ({psi}) and Akaike (AIC) habitat model selection of urban amphibian in West Java landscape

Abstract

Amphibians are animal that requires combinations of hydrosphere (riparian vegetation, water body) and vegetation (trees) microhabitats. In urban settings, those microhabitats are scarce and disappearing. One of areas that still have sufficient microhabitats to support amphibian populations is located in an 88.9 Ha urban forests of Universitas Indonesia Campus in West Java. Here, this paper aims to assess and model the several amphibian species occupancy ({Psi}) with vegetation covers, riparian vegetation, and water bodies based on Akaike habitat selection (AIC) indices. The studied amphibian species include Bufo melanosticus, Hylarana nicobariensis, Fejervarya limnocharis, and Polypedates leucomystax. For modeling, 7 microhabitat models were developed and tested for amphibian species occupancy with covariates including vegetation cover, riparian vegetation, and water body microhabitats. The Principle Component Analysis (PCA) shows that the occupancies of amphibian were influenced mostly by the presences of water bodies followed by riparian vegetation, and vegetation covers. According to the values of {Psi} and AIC, Polypedates leucomystax and Fejervarya limnocharis were species that have high occupancy in riparian vegetation microhabitats with {Psi} values of -14.18 and -12.59. Likewise, Hylarana nicobariensis has an equal occupancy in vegetation, riparian vegetation, and water body microhabitats. While Bufo melanosticus shows high occupancy in vegetated microhabitats ({Psi} = -14.18) rather than in riparian vegetation and water bodies ({Psi} = -8.79). The combinations of riparian vegetation and water bodies show higher occupancy ({Psi} = -8.00) rather than {Psi}(vegetation cover+water body = -5.64) and {Psi}(vegetation cover+ riparian vegetation = -4.36) combinations.