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| Author(s): |
Roberta Thomaz Bruscagin
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Master's Dissertation |
| Press: | Piracicaba. |
| Institution: | Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz (ESALA/BC) |
| Defense date: | 2010-05-14 |
| Examining board members: |
Jaime Aparecido Bertoluci;
Maria Victoria Ramos Ballester;
Cinthia Aguirre Brasileiro
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| Advisor: | Jaime Aparecido Bertoluci |
| Abstract | |
The Atlantic Forest is severely affected by processes of habitat loss and fragmentation, but despite this intense threat it hosts an enormous diversity of amphibians and reptiles. The main goal of the present study was to correlate the diversity of leaf-litter anurans and lizards to the size of forest fragments, as well as to the environmental characteristics of the fragments and of the landscape in which they are inserted. The study area is a fragmented landscape inserted in the municipalities of Capão Bonito and Ribeirão Grande, adjacent to Parque Estadual de Intervales and Fazenda Paraíso. Sampling of the herpetofauna was conducted during the rainy season in two consecutive years. Fazenda Paraíso was used as the control and denotes continuous forest. Anurans and lizards were collected with pitfall traps installed in 15 fragments and six sites inside the control-area. Besides the characteristics of landscape structure and configuration, like the size of the fragments and their connectivity, other environment variables that may affect the distribution and abundance of these taxa were also analysed. The herpetofauna found in the region is typical of tropical rainforests, although the results did not elucidate whether the variation in the composition of the anuran assemblage found among the landscapes is a response to the continuity or fragmentation of the forest, or if it is related to the geographical distance among the landscapes. Overall, leaf-litter anurans and lizards are sensible to habitat modification. The response to such modifications is, nevertheless, species-specific and varies according to characteristics of the natural history of each species. Habitat loss and forest fragmentation exert negative effects over some species of amphibians and ultimately over the local diversity and should thus be considered as important factors in conservation strategies and in the development of conservation guidelines in fragmented landscapes of the Atlantic Plateau of São Paulo. (AU) | |