Five-year monitoring of herpetofauna in Woraksan National Park

Abstract

In this study, in order to determine how climate change may affect amphibian and reptile communities, we surveyed the numbers of egg clumps and adults of amphibians and the number of reptiles at eight amphibian and nine reptile survey sites in Woraksan National Park from March 2005 to September 2009. We assessed the relationships among six climate factors (annual minimum temperature, annual maximum temperature, monthly mean temperature, monthly mean precipitation, monthly mean temperature during winter, and monthly mean precipitation during winter); species diversity, evenness, and richness indexes for both amphibians and reptiles; and the number of each species and egg clumps of three amphibian species. First, both the amphibian and reptile species indices evidenced sudden changes in 2007, when climate factors in Korea fluctuated substantially. Second, amphibian diversity and evenness were negatively related with annual minimum temperature. Increased monthly mean precipitation had a positive effect in mountain edge sites, but a negative effect in valley sites. Third, reptile species evenness was positively related with monthly mean precipitation. In particular, the monthly mean temperature in the winter season affected the numbers of the Dione`s rat snake and the Korean tiger keelback snake. These results indicate that amphibian and reptile communities are responding to climate change in a variety of ways.