Densities of Floor-Dwelling Frogs and Lizards in Lowland Forests of Southeast Asia and Central America

Abstract

Two large samples of amphibians and reptiles from lowland primary rain forests in Borneo come from communities that appear to have densities similar to that of a Bornean community previously reported (Lloyd et al. 1968). To this group may be added a much smaller sample from a primary rain forest in peninsular Malaysia. Densities of nonriparian terrestrial frogs and lizards in these Indo-Malayan communities are about an order of magnitude smaller than those reported from lowland forests in Central America (Scott 1976). Indo-Malayan forests are peculiar among rain forests because of supraannual synchronized mast fruiting of dipterocarp trees that dominate them (Wood 1956; Ashton 1969). I suggest that this habit reduces the number of seed-eating insects and associated arthropod predators on the floor of these forests, thereby reducing the food supply of floor-dwelling frogs and lizards and acting to limit the populations of these animals below levels achieved in neotropical forests. Large samples of frogs an...