Habitat Assemblage of Amphibians from Langkawi Archipelago, Kedah, Peninsular Malaysia

Abstract: To determine the habitat use and preferences of amphibian species inhabiting Langkawi Archipelago of Malaysia, we surveyed 53 sites from December 2018 to January 2020. Each sampling site had different habitat characteristics and topography. We used principal component analysis to evaluate the habitat assemblage of the 24 amphibian species we encountered. This analysis was done to illustrate the reduced dimensions of the variables via a component plot. The KMO value is 0.68 and Bartlett's Test of Sphericity is significant (P<0.001), which means PCA successfully interprets the habitat assemblage of amphibians from the Langkawi Archipelago. In this study, these habitats were classified into three major groups. This study shows species that can tolerate more disturbance than others (unforested/urban and forested/rural species) together with their habitat type groupings based on their habitat preference and tolerance towards disturbances. This information is vital to understand how these species use their preferred environment and minimise tourism impacts on these creatures.