Beyond the Paddy Fields: Riparian Reed Beds as Essential Natural Habitat for the Critically Endangered Suweon Treefrog, Dryophytes suweonensis

If surveys of the Suweon treefrog (Dryophytes suweonensis) are confined to flooded rice paddies during the breeding season, the species may appear to be a rice-paddy specialist. Our pre-breeding surveys in Pyeongtaek showed extensive use of reed-dominated riparian wetlands and emergent vegetation along waterways, with no detections inside paddies. This indicates that breeding-season sampling can bias habitat inference and obscure the importance of natural reed beds during much of the annual cycle, more broadly highlighting how seasonally or spatially restricted surveys may distort inferred habitat associations in threatened species. Rice paddies remain important breeding habitat, but conservation planning and monitoring should also account for non-breeding habitats that sustain populations year-round.