| Rhacophorus yinggelingensis is a new species found in 2007, it is only distributed in Yinggeling nature reserve’s virgin forest. Chengzhao LIU> Haitao SHI-. Huining LIU、Beile CHEN carried out a investigation of amphibian resources in this region, and Wenhao ZHOU made a biological description of the adult fog, other relative study is only to few. Due to small distributed region and few species number, this fog has been listed into IUCN red directory and Hainan province’s key protection wild animal directory. At present, this fog is only discovered in the high altitude virgin forest of the reserve, and its tadpole is also found, which shows the steady species distribution in this area. The ecological study of the fog’s breeding environments and the biology study of adult fog and tadpole are significant to the protection of this new species and the monitor of environmental change of Hainan tropical forests.This thesis mainly discussed Rhacophorus yinggelingensis’s population feature, habitat environmental feature and biological related topics. The investigation of population distribution and density was carried out by simulating several breeding places in different altitude. The fog’s environmental preferences were learned through analysis of 12 environmental factors in the breeding places. The study of reproductive biology and behavior was conducted by using wild monitoring and laboratory farming.The first section discussed the biological feature of the fog. It only distributed in the temporary pool with altitude more than 1200m in the reserve; the reproduction season is from March to June, mainly in March; the male fog courting by building nest and calling, the female fog choose the counterpart through the distinction of the calling. Labial tooth row formula of Rhacophorus yinggelingensis is I:4+4/1+1:II,brood stage is 112 h,period of metamorphosis is 3-4 month.The section discussed the population feature of Rhacophorus yinggelingensis. The result showed that the fog is a high altitude species which only distributed in two high altitude areas of Yinggeling nature reserve. It hibernates in cold months, and wakes up at the beginning of March. From March to June, it’s their mating season, mainly in March. The fog is very rare, there are only about 2972 fogs in the reserve based on investigation, which need more protection.We discussed it’s environmental preferences. The study shows that the fog prefers forests with average altitude of 1480 meters, average water temperature of 20.54℃, and average air temperature of 22.47℃. In the reproductive period, the fogs prefer small seasonal pools with a lot of plants around, The canopy density is high, The average canopy density is 76%. The pH value of the pool is usually faintly acid. Because it is seasonal temporary pool, the oxygen content is very low, average 0.94ppm. Through the analysis of recorded 10 environmental factors, the weight coefficient of pH value, oxygen content, water depth, canopy density, and area of the pool is bigger than 0.7, which are the main factors. And this demonstrates that the fog has strong dependency to the water during reproduction season.The protection of Rhacophorus yinggelingensis was analyzed by SWOT and we proposed several protection steps. Due to its small distribution, few population and vulnerable to threat, recommend that higher its protection level. The reserve and nearby community should try various ways to increase the income of local people, and reinforce the protection during reproduction season. |
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