Land use and climate shape amphibian multidimensional diversity and conservation in a coffee agroforestry landscape, Western Ghats
Karthick, V., Dass, S., Sadekar, V., Naniwadekar, R., & Osuri, A. M. · Biological Conservation · August 2026
As coffee cultivation expands and transforms across the tropics, its consequences for amphibians demand attention. We compared amphibian communities across secondary rainforests, and arabica and robusta coffee agroforests in relatively wet and dry climate zones in India’s Western Ghats. Our results show that secondary rainforests provide an irreplaceable refuge, supporting a distinct amphibian community with greater taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity, and higher occurrences of stream-breeding and threatened-endemic species compared to coffee agroforests. Arabica agroforests generally harboured higher multidimensional diversity than robusta agroforests, and both diversity and the occurrence of stream-breeding and threatened-endemic species declined from wetter to drier cultivation zones. These findings suggest that conversion from arabica to robusta agroforests and climate drying can diminish amphibian multidimensional diversity and conservation outcomes in coffee-growing landscapes. Safeguarding secondary rainforests, restoring streams, and maintaining cool, moist microhabitats within coffee agroforests will be critical for conserving amphibians as coffee-growing regions face ongoing climate and land-use change.
