DIET COMPOSITION AND OVERLAP OF SYMPATRIC AMPHIBIANS IN PADDY FIELDS OF NEPAL

Many studies have documented dietary habits and resource competition among sympatric amphibians, but few have focused on anuran diets in paddy fields. We studied the dietary habits of five sympatric amphibian species in the lowland paddy fields of Nepal. We extracted 685 prey items belonging to 13 major prey categories. The most frequent prey belonged to Hymenoptera, Coleoptera, Lepidoptera, Diptera, Hemiptera, and Orthoptera. Among them, Hymenoptera and Coleoptera were the most abundant prey categories. We recorded the highest prey abundance from the Asian Common Toad (Duttaphrynus melanostictus). We compared dry and rainy season diets and found similar compositions with high dietary overlap among the focal species: D. melanostictus, Common Skittering Frog (Euphlyctis cyanophlyctis), Jerdon's Bullfrog (Hoplobatrachus crassus), Asian Bullfrog (Hoplobatrachus tigerinus), and Terai Cricket Frog (Minervarya teraiensis). The differences in prey consumption we observed were associated with variation in body size and feeding strategy (e.g., sit and wait vs. active search) and may facilitate co-existence. Our findings highlight the need for a detailed study on the ecology of rice paddy amphibians and their diets.

Automated summary

This study investigated the dietary habits of five sympatric amphibian species in paddy fields in Nepal and found similar compositions between dry and rainy seasons, with a high degree of dietary overlap. The observed differences in prey consumption were associated with variations in body size and feeding strategies, which may facilitate coexistence among these species.