Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Estrutura da comunidade de anfíbios do Parque Nacional da Serra da Bocaina, São Paulo, Brasil

2012; Linguagem: Inglês

2639-6459

Michel Varajão Garey,

Wildlife Ecology and Conservation

My aim in this study was to analyze the diversity and community structure of anurans from a Atlantic rain forest in Serra da Bocaina National Park. For the sake of clarity, I divided the addressed questions into four chapters: Chapter 1, (i) Does species distribution respond to seasonality? (ii) Which are the most important climatic factors influencing temporal distribution of species? (iii) Is there an overlap in habitat use?; (iv) Does species have unique response to environmental heterogeneity?; Chapter 2, (i) Is there a variation in the number of reproductive modes between forested areas and montane grasslands? (ii) Is the number of reproductive modes in lentic habitats associated with either water body heterogeneity?; Chapter 3, (i) What is the relative influence of phylogeny and environmental factors (habitat and microhabitat use) on call parameters of anurans? (ii) Do co-occurring species differ in call parameters than expected at random?; Chapter 4, (i) Do climatic variables and altitude predict amphibian richness in communities along the Atlantic rain forest? (ii) Are spatial factors more important than environmental factors in driving beta diversity? To address the questions of the three first chapters, I monitored monthly lentic environments in forested and open areas, between 1,300 and 1,600 m a.s.l. To address the questions of the fourth chapter, I compiled a database from primary literature and specimen records of museums. In the first chapter, I found that the temporal distribution of species was seasonal, with higher species density during the warm and wet period of the year. The temporal variation in species richness was positively related to rainfall. However, species responded in an idiosyncratic way to climatic variables. The pattern spatial distribution of species richness was mainly influenced by water body heterogeneity. Species richness was higher in environments with lower amounts of aquatic vegetation. However, habitat preference of anurans varied in a species-specific way. In the second chapter I found that water bodies within forested environments were more heterogeneous, had higher species richness and number of reproductive modes, in comparison with montane grasslands. However, when I considered only lentic water bodies, it seems that highly heterogeneous habitats had lower diversity of reproductive modes, regardless of species richness. Thus, it seems that there is a tendency for the occurrence of water-independent reproductive modes within forested habitats, due to the higher availability of humid microhabitats used as oviposition sites. In the third chapter I found a strong phylogenetic signal in the advertisement call of anurans, whereas habitat and microhabiat features had little influence on this trait. This result shows that anuran’s call is a conserved trait throughout the phylogeny, with little plasticity in response to the environment. Furthermore, I found that species that co-occur temporally did not have more dissimilar calls. However, spatially co-occurring species have dissimilar calls, supporting the hypothesis of acoustic space partitioning. In the fourth chapter, I found that the richness pattern was not correlated with any variable. Beta diversity was influenced neither by climatic variables nor by geographical distance. However, communities greatly differ in species composition. This fact can be explained by the high rate of endemism in the Atlantic Rain Forest. Key-words: spatio-temporal distribution; beta diversity; environmental heterogeneity; metacommunity; reproductive modes; richness; vocalization.