Diversity Of Amphibians In Yuanbao Mountain Natural Reserve,Guangxi

Amphibians belong to the middle species in the process of evolution of vertebrates from the terrestrial to the aquatic. They keep a special life cycle of anomalous growth and are in the middle layer of the nutrition structure in the ecological system, which make them vulnerable to be affected by the environmental changes. In recent years, zoologists show extensive concern on the declination of the number of amphibians in a part of National parks, Nature reserves and some mountainous areas. Yuanbao mountain Natural Reserve, a National forest park, a Natural reserve and Scenic spot in Guangxi, is one of the key areas for research into the biological diversity in Guangxi. Therefore, research on the diversity of amphibians in these Natural Reserve can provide not only basis for the construction and management, development and utilization of the resources, and sustainable development of the Natural reserve, but also help to monitor the whole situation of the ecological environment in the region and the surrounding areas, and help to carry out research and protection of biological diversity.Based on some data and documents and the fact finding in Yuanbao mountain Natural Reserve, this paper is to analyze the Faunal composition, the specie diversity, the diversity of geographical, ecological and resource types of amphibian species, and to make a comparison of Sorenson index and G-F index with other natural reserves in Guangxi. The results are addressed hereinafter:(1)27species of amphibians were found in Yuanbao mountain Natural Reserve, which belong to2orders,8families and18genera, respectively combining32.1%of amphibian species in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and8.3%of the national amphibian species. In species composition, Ranidae is the dominant family, which has the most species, accounting for48.1%of the composition; Odorrana is the dominant genera, although not obvious; Bufo melanostictus, Fejervary multistriata and Hylarana guentheri are the most in number. In the reserve, two species, Andrias davidtanus and Hoplobatrachus rugulosus, are the second-grade State protected species. In addition,24species are listed in the "list of protected animals in China",10are in the list of key district-level protected wild animals in Guangxi,2in China’s red endangered animals and2in the appendix of CITES.(2) Some indexes are used to determinate the diversity of the amphibians in the reserve, such as the richness(S), the indexes of Simpson(D), Shannon-Wiener(H), and Pielou(Jd), the average index based on the Simpson index and Hurlbert index. The results show that there is a high diversity of amphibian species in Yuanbao mountain Natural Reserve (D=0.9245, H=2.8773, Jd=0.9267, Jh=0.873, E=0.8354) and the variety of species is higher than that of the genera.(3) The amphibian faunal in the reserve is mainly Oriental realm, among which there are24oriental species, making up88.9%of the total species, and three cosmopolitic species, covering11.1%of the total. Among the Oriental realm,8species are found in central China,2in south China, and13in south and central China,1in southwest China. (4) The Margalef index is used to determinate the richness of each habitat type of the amphibians in the reserve. From it we learn that there are five ecological types and the highest index of the diversity is the aquatic type, and the second highest index is the terrestrial static water type, terrestrial floating water type, and the calm water type, and the lowest is the arboreal type.(5) Sorenson index is also used to compare the community similarity between Yuanbao mountain Natural Reserve and nine other natural reserves in Guangxi. The result shows that the amphibian community in Yuanbao mountain Natural Reserve and that in Maoershan Natural Reserve is the highest(I=0.677), which is of moderate similarity, and the amphibian community in Yuanbao mountain Natural Reserve and that in Diding Natural Reserve is the lowest(I=0.367), which is of mild similarity.(6) G-F index is also tried to measure the diversity between the families and the genera of the amphibians in the reserve, and a comparison is made with seven other reserves in Guangxi. It turns out that both G index and F index of the amphibians are higher in Yuanbao mountain Natural Reserve, and G index (2.8144) is lower than F index (3.9577), and G-F index is0.2889; that G index of the amphibians in Yuanbao mountain Natural Reserve is only a little lower than that in Maoershan Natural Reserve, and F index is only a little lower than that in Maoershan Natural Reserve and Lijiang Scenic Spot; and that DG-F is a bit lower than that in Lijiang Scenic Spot. This indicates the amphibian genera and order in the reserve have a superior diversity.(7)According to their function and traditional use in folk, the amphibians in the region can be divided into4types:medical amphibians, economic amphibians, ornamental amphibians (for the use of educational and scientific research), and ecological amphibians.From the above we have come to a conclusion that Yuanbao mountain Natural Reserve is one of the areas in Guangxi, and the amphibians is rich in species, and distribute in equation, and stabilize comparatively in structure. All this indicates that the Reserve is variable and complicated in ecology, and is rich in water resource, and is good in climate, which provides a good survival and breeding environment for the amphibians.