ARPHA Preprints, doi: 10.3897/arphapreprints.e95861
Uneven Species Occurrence and Richness of Lowland Snakes (Serpentes, Squamata) in Terengganu, Peninsular Malaysia with New Locality Records.
expand article infoMuhamad Fatihah Syafiq, Baizul Hafsham Badli-Sham§, Lee Grismer|||, Amirrudin Ahmad
‡ Biodiversity and Ecology Research Group, Faculty of Science and Marine Environment, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, KUALA TERENGGANU, Malaysia§ Biodiversity and Ecology Research Group, Faculty of Science and Marine Environment, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, Kuala Nerus, Malaysia| La Sierra University, Riverside, United States of America¶ Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, Kuala Nerus, Malaysia
Open Access
Abstract

This study documented information on the composition, diversity, richness, and temporal occurrence of snakes at Sekayu’s lowland forest (SLF), Terengganu, Peninsular Malaysia for the first time. The snakes recorded within the SLF were sampled haphazardly from 2013 to 2019, employing the Visual Encounter Survey (VES) and L-shape pitfall traps with drift fences. Forty-six snake species from 37 genera belonging to the nine families were recorded, of which eleven were new records to Terengganu. Individual-based rarefaction and extrapolation curves were not reaching asymptote, indicating that additional species can be recorded at the study area. Non-parametric species richness estimators estimated and produced a range between 51 and 57 species. ACE was the best estimator based on the quantitative evaluation. All species showed some variations of the occurrence patterns across months. Fourteen species occurred only once across the sampling years, and interestingly 11 of them were detected during the rainy season. In general, the number of species richness, abundance, and rare species were high during this season. Species richness of snakes is high at SLF but sampling effort should be intensified, especially during these rainy months, to obtain a robust estimated snake species richness in SLF. Terengganu harbor considerably high species richness of snakes with a total of 71 species to date (excluding marine snakes), but snake diversity is still underestimated as only a few localities were surveyed in the past years, primarily at the northern part. Future surveys should be commenced at the central and southern parts of Terengganu to complement the current investigation.

Keywords
monsoon, reptiles, species richness estimation, species turnover, tropical rainforest