Indian Bull Frog Juvenile.

A large proportion of world’s biodiversity co-exist with humans in the ecosystems outside the protected areas (David Pimentel et al., 1992) of which almost 50 % is devoted for agriculture (Western and pearl 1989). With the escalation of agricultural practices in a past few decades there has been a steep decline in biodiversity. Though an integral part of agroecology herpetozoons has remained quite an understudied taxa. Unlike studies in forests and protected areas, studies in agroecosystem is sparse.

The work will be executed in the subsequent steps-

1. Identifying and selecting study sites along a gradient of high intensification and low agricultural intensification zones.

2. The second part will compose of building co-operation with the farmers and the localites for carrying out the research work.

3. Third part will include trap construction and installation.

4. Fourth part will comprise of thorough sampling of the herpetofauna in the selected study sites throughout the year.

5. Fifth part is preparing questionnaire on ethno-herpetofaunal survey to bring out the perception of these farmers about these animals.

The study thus attempting to fill in the knowledge gap about these animals in an agroecosystem perspective will go a long way in knowing the diversity, richness, abundance, status of these animals and conserving them outside protected areas in the future. The study will provide a detailed inventory of the herpetofauna that are supported in an agricultural habitat. Since the approach is gradient based, studying herpetofaunal assemblage in a high intensive agricultural zone and comparing the results with that from low intensive areas surrounding forest fringes will help to predict the change in species assemblage along a timescale and the impacts of different factors associated with agricultural intensification on herpetofauna and any loss due to agricultural intensification. A considerable part of the work includes human participation. A direct outcome of animals residing in man-made ecosystem is conflict, driven mostly by cultural misperception. An intensive ethno-herpetofaunal survey of these farming communities will help to bring out the state of conflict, their perceptions and man-made threats to these animals in such ecosystems. These results will thus help to increase awareness among local farmers and will help in designing conservation strategies in the future involving the farming community and local NGOs.