earticle

영어

Forest managements such as deforestation and construction of forest roads change characteristics of forest floor and subsequently result in alteration of various animal’s habitats. In this study, we investigated habitat characteristics of herpetofauna in Mt. Gariwang in which various forest managements such as deforestation, reforestation, and construction forest roads have been executed in order to evaluate how such forest managements affect herpetofaunal habitat uses. We selected 24 study sites including both deforested and non-deforested areas. For each point where we found any of amphibians or reptiles, we obtained GPS coordinates and then analyzed habitat characteristics with 9 environmental factors using GIS. Those variables include forest type, altitude, slope, aspect, distance to mountain stream, ratio of mountain road, ratio of deforestation, ratio of grass and tree areas, and size of areas. Overall, we found 1 amphibian and 4 reptile species in deforested areas, while 6 amphibian and 6 reptile species in non-deforested areas. In correlation analysis between environmental variables and the number of amphibian and reptile species and individuals of them, first, as a deforested area rate increased, the number of amphibian species decreased. For reptiles, deforestation rate did not affect reptile community, but the number of reptile species was negatively correlated with the distance from mountain stream. Our results suggest that deforestation negatively affect amphibian community, but the effect on reptile community is not evident. The reptile community is closely related with mountain stream systems. Our study is the first report, as far as we know, how forest managements affect habitat use of amphibians and reptiles in high mountain areas.