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. 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 due to 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 has affected 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 unaltered sites. 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 the contrary, the plateaus without orchards harbored more specialist species such as Hemidactylus albofasciatus (n = 62, in unaltered sites vs. n = 5 in the orchards), Echis carinatus (n = 15 in unaltered sites and none in the orchards) and Ophisops jerdonii (n = 45 in unaltered site vs. n = 12 in the orchards) compared to the generalist species.