BIODIVERSITAS ISSN: 1412-033X Volume 19, Number 4, July 2018 E-ISSN: 2085-4722 Pages: 1213-1219 DOI: 10.13057/biodiv/d190405 The impacts of oil palm plantation establishment on the habitat type, species diversity, and feeding guild of mammals and herpetofauna ROZZA TRI KWATRINA 1,2,♥ , YANTO SANTOSA 3 , M. BISMARK 2 , NYOTO SANTOSO 3 1 Graduate Program of Tropical Biodiversity Conservation, Faculty of Forestry, Institut Pertanian Bogor. Jl. Lingkar Akademik Kampus IPB Dramaga, Bogor 16680, West Java, Indonesia. Tel. +62-251-8626806, ♥ email: rozzatk317@gmail.com 2 Center of Forestry Research and Development, Forestry and Environment Research, Development and Innovation Agency, Ministry of Environment and Forestry, Indonesia. Jl. Gunung Batu No. 5, Bogor 16118, West Java, Indonesia 3 Department of Forestry Conservation, Faculty of Forestry, Institut Pertanian Bogor. Jl. Lingkar Akademik Kampus IPB Dramaga, Bogor 16680, West Java, Indonesia Manuscript received: 19 February 2018. Revision accepted: 2 June 2018. Abstract. Kwatrina RT, Santosa Y, Bismark M, Santoso N. 2018. The impacts of oil palm plantation establishment on the habitat type, species diversity, and feeding guild of mammals and herpetofauna. Biodiversitas 19: 1213-1219. Indonesia is the world’s largest producer of palm oil. Contributing 2.14% to the country’s gross domestic product, palm oil plays an important role in the national economy from plantation sector. However, the expansion of oil palm plantations has brought negative impacts to forests and wildlife. Little is known to what extent these negative impacts on mammals and reptiles can be reduced through better management. To address this knowledge gap, the current study assessed species diversity as affected by the establishment of the oil palm plantation in Central Kalimantan, a tropical biodiversity hotspot in Asia. We conducted 25 line transect surveys and visual encounter surveys in oil palm areas, shrubs and secondary forests in these landscapes. The results indicated that the establishment of oil palm plantation negatively impacted species abundance and diversity, and changed the mammal and reptile species composition, by favoring ecologically generalist species. For forest specialist species, forested areas like HCV and HCS, play an important role in maintaining habitat heterogeneity in oil palm landscapes. Mammal species found in habitat conditions following oil palm plantations belong to some feeding groups, whereas all species of herpetofauna have terrestrial habitat types. These mammal and herpetofauna species can live and function in the food chain in the oil palm plantation ecosystem. Keywords: Borneo, high conservation value, habitat heterogeneity, oil palm plantation, species diversity INTRODUCTION Indonesia is the world's largest producer and exporter of crude palm oil with a total area of 12.3 million ha and produces 35.4 million tons by 2017 (Dirjenbun 2016). Together with Malaysia, Indonesia controls almost 85% of the world’s palm oil production. With its contribution to the national income of approximately 18.1 billion dollars in 2016 and soared by 26% to US $ 22.97 billion in 2017 (GAPKI 2017) or 2.31% of total national GDP, palm oil has become a mainstay product and play a leading role in the Indonesian economy from plantation sector. The expansion of oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) plantations also creates a negative perception of the loss of biodiversity. For the Southeast Asian region, oil palm plantations in Indonesia are often blamed for the destruction of tropical biodiversity (Fitzherbert et al. 2008; Koh and Wilcove 2008; Sodhi et al. 2008; Colchester et al. 2011). The characteristics of oil palm plantations are considered to greatly reduce the functioning of species diversity and support only a few forest-dependent species (Aratrakorn et al. 2006; Edwards et al. 2013). Mammals and herpetofauna are animals that are affected by the expansion of oil palm plantations. Mammals play an important role in maintaining and preserving the continuity of ecological processes (Kartono 2015), while herpetofauna is a part of the environmental biological indicators. Although the number of mammal species that can survive in the oil palm plantations is relatively small (Yasuma 1994), the available information on the impact of oil palm plantation establishment on species diversity is limited (Sodhi et al. 2010). Several studies have examined the impact of forest change on the tropical herpetofauna community (Vitt and Caldwell 2001, Wanger et al. 2010), and the effects of oil palm plantation establishments on mammals (Maddox et al. 2007; Bernard et al. 2009; Nantha and Tisdell 2009; Azhar et al. 2014; Kartono 2015). However, up to now, studies related to mammal and herpetofauna diversity based on changes in land cover in oil palm plantations have not been widely implemented. It is important to know the implementation of those studies because Indonesian oil palm plantations come in various types of land cover such as shrubs, forests, fields, or other plantations. Kalimantan is an important region of tropical biodiversity in Indonesia and is often the object of biodiversity and deforestation studies. The growth trend of oil palm plantations in Indonesia has also contributed to the expansion of these plantations in Kalimantan. In 2016, the total area of oil palm plantations in this region ranked second after Sumatra. The largest area is located in Central Kalimantan Province with about 38.4% of the total area of Kalimantan (Dirjenbun 2016). So far, there are still some questions about how biodiversity in Borneo is affected by