2.1 Landscape context
The study was conducted in 12 areas across Laos (Figure 1), in two contrasting landscape contexts (Table 1). Five sampling locations correspond to relatively undisturbed natural forests, which have long been recognized for their outstanding biodiversity. There, the traditional human activity consists mainly of logging, food searching, and hunting. However, natural forests have recently been facing land-use intensification pressures, due to extremely rapid economic growth leading to the development of multiple aspects of human activities, including the expansion of agricultural lands. Part of the natural forest in the study areas has been influenced by the construction of a railroad going from the north to the center of Laos, which will be part of a larger railway linking China to Thailand through Laos.
In contrast, seven sampling locations were located in plantations. This type of landscape structure had different agricultural and deforestation histories and is mostly dedicated to rubber and eucalyptus plantations, which have increased exponentially in the country. Part of the present study was undertaken on a large rubber plantation in northern Laos (site 4L and 4H), which covered 33,000 ha in 2016 and was occupied by various ethnic groups (Kusakabe and Chanthoumphone, 2021); more rubber plantation areas now extend to the center and to the south. Most of the deforestation happened several years before sampling, resulting in a single unfragmented rubber plantation. In addition, sampling also occurred in a eucalyptus plantation planted with a monocrop of eucalyptus trees in rows, the natural forest around plantations being used for extensive livestock and rice paddy field (site 1W, 1P, 2, and 3). Furthermore, different agricultural activities such as coffee, cabbage, strawberry farms, and grassland mixed with rice paddy fields were covered in the present study across the country (Figure 1).