A Preliminary Survey of Siamese Crocodile Habitat Preferences

Floating Vegetation on Lake Mesangat, Muara Ancalong, East Kutai, Indonesia

DOI

10.2991/absr.k.210408.061How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Siamese crocodile, Habitat preference, Floating vegetation, Mesangat Lake

Abstract

Floating vegetation is one of the biotic components in the Mesangat Lake ecosystem, which plays an essential role for Siamese crocodiles. Floating plants in the Mesangat Lake can be used as an indicator of habitat preferences and Siamese crocodiles’ success rate in nesting. This research aimed to find out floating plants that dominate Mesangat Lake, especially when the probability of encountering the crocodile is high. A visual encounter survey with patch sampling was used in this research. We found twelve main species of floating plant species in the Mesangat Lake, dominated by Leersia hexandra (36%), followed by Cyperus rotundus (19%) and Eichhornia crassipes (15%). L. hexandra and C. rotundus are potential resources of nesting materials for Siamese crocodiles. On the other hand, E. crassipes is possibly not an option for nesting. E. crassipes is considered an invasive aquatic plant and could represent disrupted habitats in the wetland. Since the presence of this plant species is not dominant in Lake Mesangat, we predict that the habitat is still relatively suitable to support the Siamese crocodiles population.

Copyright

© 2021, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Teguh Muslim
AU  - Rachmat Budiwijaya Suba
PY  - 2021
DA  - 2021/04/10
TI  - A Preliminary Survey of Siamese Crocodile Habitat Preferences
BT  - Proceedings of the Joint Symposium on Tropical Studies (JSTS-19)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 370
EP  - 374
SN  - 2468-5747
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/absr.k.210408.061
DO  - 10.2991/absr.k.210408.061
ID  - Muslim2021
ER  -