The Different Processes On The Impact Of Urbanization On Reptile Communities In Guangzhou City

50 years after the reform and opening up, the rapid economic development of Guangzhou city, result in a very rapid process of urbanization, and the region has been subject to high intensity of human development, impact of the process of urbanization and impact of local food culture, and therefore, wildlife species and its number is decreasing sharply, habitat environment being fragmentary. As a result, the environmental quality of wildlife decreased obviously, and the biodiversity conservation faced with serious challenges.In order to better understand the impact which is brought about by the process of urbanization to ecology and environment and biodiversity issues, and at the same time to understand the ecological impact caused by human's activities on the Earth and to provide examples, author conducted and investigated 170 sampling zones 37 times from 26th April 2005 to 15th May,26th October to 15th November,10th March 2006 to 28th March,13th June to 1th July,10th September to 29th September in Guangzhou city. Those sampling zones were selected from four habitat sections (Aotou Town of Conghua City Aotou Town, Liuxihe National Forest Park of Conghua City, Xinken town of Panyu District, Guangzhou City). We analyzed the habitat gradient parameter to determine the chief factor which impact the reptile community in Guangzhou City, and then we proposed that the city composite index can be used as indicators to measure the city; furthermore we analyzed the relationship between urbanization and reptile community of Guangzhou City. The main results of this paper are as follows:1. Species constituent of reptile in four habitat gradient.Through the method of using transect survey and sampling of the four monitoring of the Habitat gradient reptile community, we counted and recorded 51 species of reptile, belonging to 12 families,3 orders. Among them,41 species belong to Oriental Realm,10 species belonging to the widespread, without any species of Palaearctic. Through the calculation of relative abundance of diversity, the dominant reptiles in the communities included:Hemidactylus bowringii, Eumeces chinensis, Takydromus septentrionalis, Sphenomorphus indicus, Amphiesma stolatum, Cyclophiops major, Enhydris plunbea, Ptyas korros.2. Analysis of species diversity of the reptile community in four habitat gradient.In the four habitat sections, Shannon-Wiener species diversity got the peak at the end sides of Liuxihe (3.0447); species diversity coefficient fell the lowest at end of Guangzhou city(1.6665); Margalef diversity index reached the highest point at the end of Liuxihe (7.6132), while the lowest(1.9243) at end of city area of Guangzhou; G index, F index, and G-F index all showed that they climbed highest level at the end of Liuxihe, and got down lowest at city area of Guangzhou. On the other hand, we conducted cluster analysis on reptile community based on species similarity coefficients. Cluster analysis results show: from Guangzhou city areas with higher disturbance (representatives of the higher level of urbanization) to Liuxihe with lower interference (representatives of the lower level of urbanization), reptiles diversity index has a progressive trend, and the diversity of vegetation species richness and vegetation coverage become higher, the species and number of reptiles are more, and its diversity index also get higher.3. Impact analysis of urbanization on reptiles.Analysis of habitat parameters show that:Water quality and density of reptiles annual return coefficient of 0.581, food diversity and species of reptiles diversity return coefficient of 0.395, the physical interference and species of reptiles diversity return coefficient of-1.480. In addition to food,water factors and the physical interference, other interference factors (the proportion of surrounding buildings, the distance to the city center, noise) also have varying degrees of impact on the distribution, density and diversity of reptiles in Guangzhou City. Food diversity and human interference is the most important factor to determine the reptile diversity all the whole year.In a word, the result shows that:during the rapid changes of urbanization, the density and diversity of reptiles in Guangzhou City decline as the degree of urbanization rise, and it demonstrates that reptiles can not adapt to the environment of high degree of urbanization. Although a small number of reptiles have a certain degree of adaptability to the urbanization of city, there are no real species to adapt to the urbanization. Therefore, during the city's planning and construction, consideration should be given to provide for the reptiles to survive the necessary vegetation and breeding sites, building a harmonious coexisted ecological city for both human and reptile.