Species Diversity and Elevational Distribution of Amphibians in the Xianxialing and Wuyishan Mountain Ranges,Southeastern China

The species diversity and altitudinal distribution of amphibians along an elevational gradient of 200.1 600 m in the Xianxialing and Wuyishan Mountain Ranges in Southeastern China were investigated through time-constrained visual surveys along 32 transect lines in 9 survey areas, in which the habitat types were also recorded. A total of 27 amphibian species belonging to 19 genera, 7 families, and 2 orders were found. The species diversity of the amphibians plateaued at low elevation, and the altitudinal boundary of their distribution was at 800 m.Their species compositions were dissimilar in the two mountain ranges probably because the annual average temperature and annual rainfall were different in both areas. The elevational Rapoport's rule demonstrated that the species range size of the amphibians expanded as the elevation increased in both mountain ranges.The results of the cross-species method supported the rule only when the influence of the low-frequency occurrence probability of an investigated species was excluded, whereas those of the Steven's method strongly corroborated the rule regardless of the incidental occurrence or absence of the species.