Tee Sze Ling, Samantha Liza D, Kamarudin Norizah, Akbar Zubaid, Lechner Alex M, Ashton-Butt Adham, Azhar Badrul
Department of Forest Management, Faculty of Forestry University Putra Malaysia Serdang Malaysia.
Faculty of Science and Technology, School of Environmental and Natural Resource Sciences National University of Malaysia Bangi Malaysia.
Ecol Evol. 2018 Dec 4;8(24):12506-12521. doi: 10.1002/ece3.4632. eCollection 2018 Dec.
Urban expansion has caused major deforestation and forest fragmentation in the tropics. The impacts of habitat fragmentation on biodiversity are understudied in urban forest patches, especially in the tropics and little is known on the conservation value of the patches for maintaining mammalian biodiversity. In this study, camera trapping was used to determine the species composition and species richness of medium- and large-sized mammals in three urban forest patches and a contiguous forest in Peninsular Malaysia. We identified the key vegetation attributes that predicted mammal species richness and occurrence of herbivores and omnivores in urban forest patches. A total number of 19 mammal species from 120 sampling points were recorded. Contiguous forest had the highest number of species compared to the urban forest patches. Sunda Pangolin and Asian Tapir were the only conservation priority species recorded in the urban forest patches and contiguous forest, respectively. Top predators such as Malayan Tiger and Melanistic Leopard were completely absent from the forest patches as well as the contiguous forest. This was reflected by the abundance of wild boars. We found that mammal species richness increased with the number of trees with DBH less than 5 cm, trees with DBH more than 50 cm, and dead standing trees. In the future, the remaining mammal species in the urban forest patches are expected to be locally extinct as connecting the urban forest patches may be infeasible due to land scarcity. Hence, to maintain the ecological integrity of urban forest patches, we recommend that stakeholders take intervention measures such as reintroduction of selected species and restocking of wild populations in the urban forest patches to regenerate the forest ecosystems.
城市扩张已导致热带地区出现大规模森林砍伐和森林碎片化。城市森林斑块中栖息地碎片化对生物多样性的影响研究不足，尤其是在热带地区，而且对于这些斑块在维持哺乳动物生物多样性方面的保护价值知之甚少。在本研究中，利用相机陷阱来确定马来西亚半岛三个城市森林斑块和一片毗邻森林中大中型哺乳动物的物种组成和物种丰富度。我们确定了预测城市森林斑块中哺乳动物物种丰富度以及食草动物和杂食动物出现情况的关键植被属性。在120个采样点共记录了19种哺乳动物。与城市森林斑块相比，毗邻森林的物种数量最多。马来穿山甲和亚洲貘分别是在城市森林斑块和毗邻森林中记录到的仅有的具有保护优先级的物种。森林斑块和毗邻森林中完全没有马来亚虎和黑化豹等顶级食肉动物。野猪的数量众多就反映了这一点。我们发现，哺乳动物物种丰富度随着胸径小于5厘米的树木数量、胸径大于50厘米的树木数量以及枯立木数量的增加而增加。未来，城市森林斑块中剩余的哺乳动物物种预计将在当地灭绝，因为由于土地稀缺，连接城市森林斑块可能不可行。因此，为了维持城市森林斑块的生态完整性，我们建议利益相关者采取干预措施，如在城市森林斑块中重新引入选定物种和补充野生种群数量，以恢复森林生态系统。
