Impact of Land Use Change on Herpetofauna Community Composition in Ankeniheny-Zahamena Corridor (CAZ), Eastern Madagascar

Madagascar is home of many biodiversity and most of them are endemic to the island. Herpetofauna combining two classes of vertebrates such as amphibians and reptiles; this group with more than 350 described species for each class is considered as high diversity. Species in this group is more specialists in terms of habitat selection which they are forest dependent especially the eastern rainforest. Habitat loss by swidden agriculture practice and charcoal production is the main threat in this country. Forest regeneration is very difficult because people continue to use lands for crops until it’s becoming infertile. We conducted research impact of land use change on biodiversity considering amphibians and reptiles around CAZ. The study area is one of the biggest remaining corridors in the eastern of Madagascar. This study took account of four habitats from forest to degraded land and one additional land use which is the reforestation plot. The mains goal of this study is to compare species diversity and abundance in objectives to identify where we should focus on conservation in the future. Three standard methods for herpetofauna inventory were used for each land use. Forty four sites were visited and 152 species of amphibian and reptile were inventoried. Closed canopy forest is home of the most species that we found and the degraded land is the poorest in terms of species richness. Result of this study indicates also that habitat restoration is very important. The difference between land uses might be the result of the change on microclimate which affect species distribution.