Study of Species Richness and Structure Community of Herpetofauna on Kondang Merak Forest, Malang, Indonesia

Abstract

: Kondang Merak Forest was known for its tourism destination, despite this area being the only coastal protected forest in Malang. Because of tourism demand, several anthropogenic activities were recorded and threatening the ecological balances of the forest including herpetofauna in it. Hence, we provide the information on the herpetofauna diversity completed with the habitat type on the Kondang Merak forest. A survey was conducted from November 2018 to June 2019 on each 6 different site points according to a specific habitat. We analyzed the data using the importance value index and Jaccard similarity to better known the herpetofauna community structure. A total of 38 species of herpetofauna were recorded consists of 8 amphibians (Anura), 15 lizards (Sauria), and 15 snakes (Serpentes) species. Based on the habitat type, we concluded that the distribution pattern and herpetofauna composition may be reflected by the biological adaptation, environmental carrying capacity, and different landscape vegetation such as coastal area, stream, temporary pond, secondary forest and monoculture plantation. These findings can be used as baseline data for further study on genetic study and management strategies on the Kondang Merak forest.