A check list and population trends of invasive amphibians and reptiles in Taiwan

Abstract Invasive species have impacted biodiversity all around the world. Among various ecosystems, islands are most vulnerable to these impacts due to their high ratio of endemism, highly specialized adaptation, and isolated and unique fauna. As with other subtropical islands, Taiwan faces constant risk of biological invasions and is currently ranked as one of the countries most affected by invasive amphibians and reptiles. In this paper, a comprehensive checklist of all known exotic amphibians and reptiles is provided, including twelve species which have successfully colonized Taiwan and six species with a controversial status. We provide an update on the knowledge of all these species including their distribution, colonization history, threats to native animals, and population trends based on literature records, fauna surveys, and data collected during invasive species eradication and control programs. A list of species with high invasive potentials is also provided. This study reports, for the first time, a comprehensive survey of invasive herpetofauna in Taiwan, which should provide a valuable reference to other regions which might suffer from similar invasion risk.

• Publication year

  2019

• Venue

  ZooKeys

• Publication date

  2019-03-11

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine, Geography, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.3897/zookeys.829.27535PMID 30914838PMCID 6422934
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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