More the Merrier? Influence of Mango Orchards on the Composition of the Reptile Communities of the Lateritic Plateaus, Maharashtra, India.

Change in land use patterns affects a landscape by changing the composition of local flora and fauna. The lateritic plateaus in Konkan are one such example of this rapid land use change. The area between the West coast and the Northern-Western Ghats of India, the Konkan region is characterized by these plateaus. Although these plateaus are rich in endemic flora and fauna, they are considered as wastelands due to lack of woody vegetation and thus, are subjected to various land uses. Mango cultivation in this region has become a major source of income since its known for its Alphonso variety of mangoes. Hence, over the last few decades, many plateaus have been converted into mango orchards. However, how the conversion of plateaus to mango orchards have effected species composition of different groups of organisms remains unclear. In the present study, we sampled the lateritic plateaus and plateaus converted into mango orchards in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, to investigate the response of the reptile communities. We observed more species heterogeneity in the orchards compared to the plateaus. Since, the orchards offered more diverse microhabitats for species to occupy. Moreover, it appeared that there was a species turnover when the plateaus were converted into orchards. The generalist and widespread species such as agamids and skinks and very few specialist species were comparatively more abundant in the orchards. On a contrary, the plateaus without orchards harboured more specialist species like Hemidactylus albofasciatus, Echis carinatus and Ophisops jerdonii compared to the generalist species.