The Herpetofauna from Ilha Grande (Angra dos Reis, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil): updating species composition, richness, distribution and endemisms

Ilha Grande is a large continental island (total area of 19,300 ha) situated at the southern coast of the state of Rio de Janeiro, in southeast Brazil, within the Atlantic Forest Biome. Here we provide an update to the previous knowledge of the fauna of amphibians and reptiles occurring in Ilha Grande, based on primary data from our own fieldwork and on secondary data (from institutional collections and from the literature). We report the occurrence at Ilha Grande of a total of 74 species, being 34 amphibians (all of them anurans) and 40 reptiles (27 snakes, 11 lizards, one amphisbaenian and one crocodylian). Our survey added 14 species to the herpetofaunal list of Ilha Grande (three of amphibians and eleven of reptiles) and removed one species (the amphibian Cycloramphus fuliginosus) from the previous list. The data indicated that Ilha Grande houses a considerable portion of the Atlantic Forest amphibian and reptile diversity (ca. 6% and 19%, respectively, of the species occurring in this biome) together with high occurrence of species endemic to this biome plus a few amphibian species endemic to this island. Ilha Grande is thus an important reservoir of both biodiversity and endemism of amphibians and reptiles of the Atlantic Forest of Brazil, which highlights the importance of the conservation of the island and of its different habitats along the insular landscape

Cuadernos de Herpetología | Volumen 37 | Número 2

Trabajos: - Description of a new species of the Liolaemus elongatus group (Squamata: Iguania) through integrative taxonomy | Soledad Ruiz, Pablo Chafrat, Matías Quipildor, Soledad Valdecantos, Fernando Lobo - New morphology data and geographic distribution expansion of Leposternon mineiro Ribeiro, Silveira & Santos-Jr, 2018 (Squamata, Amphisbaenia, Amphisbaenidae) | Jady Pimenta Eleutério, Alfredo P. Santos-Jr, Wilian Vaz-Silva, and Síria Ribeiro - Estudios acústicos en poblaciones argentinas de Leptodactylus (Anura, Leptodactylidae): revisión histórica y datos adicionales | Víctor Hugo Zaracho, Fernanda Natalia Abreliano, Daniel Espínola Ocampo, Ariovaldo Antonio Giaretta - Ecologia térmica de anuros da Caatinga, Nordeste do Brasil | Larissa Carvalho Ferreira, Geane Limeira da Silva, Leonardo Barros Ribeiro - Body Size, Age and Growth Pattern of the most represented anurans in Inselbergs of northeastern Argentina | Jose Miguel Piñeiro, Rodrigo Cajade, Federico Marangoni - Composition, richness, abundance, and association of anuran fauna with the flooded habitats in the Ariri district, eastern Amazon | Juliana Gonçalves Corrêa, Pedro Ferreira França, Jackson Cleiton Sousa, Carlos Eduardo Costa-Campos Notas: - Comparing leaf litter anuran diversity in two habitats of an Atlantic Forest area in Rio de Janeiro State, Southeastern Brazil | Felipe B. S. Telles, Catia M. Militão, Carla C. Siqueira, Davor Vrcibradic, Carlos Frederico D. Rocha - Análisis morfológico de un caso de polimelia en Rhinella dorbignyi (Anura: Bufonidae) | Federico L. Oser, Jesica A. Sansiñena, Leandro Alcalde, Guillermo S. Natale Novedades zoogeográficas: -Primeros registros de Cercosaura parkeri (Ruibal, 1952) (Sauria, Gymnophthalmidae) en la ecorregión Chaco Seco de Argentina | María Esther Tedesco, Víctor Hugo Zaracho, Miguel Antonio Regnet, José Luis Acosta, Leonardo Dionel Aguiar, Eduardo Gabriel Etchepare, José Augusto Ruiz García, Roberto Hugo Aguirre, Daniel Alberto Lencina, Daniel Espínola Ocampo - New records and distribution extension of Acanthochelys macrocephala (Rhodin, Mittermeier & McMorris 1984) in midwestern Brazil | Tainá Figueras Dorado-Rodrigues, Elizângela Silva Brito, Karoline Rodrigues Silva, Rafael Martins Valadão, Fábio Andrew Gomes Cunha, Christine StrüssmannAsociación Herpetológica Argentin

Comunidades de anuros tropicais em paisagens agrícolas: uma abordagem integrada

Doutoramento em Biologia e Ecologia das Alterações Globais (Especialização em Ecologia e Biologia Tropical)Anthropogenic activities such as agriculture and cattle farming are the main causes of biodiversity loss. Agricultural expansion is especially detrimental in the tropics, where agricultural investment meets important social and economic demands, and biodiversity is especially high and unique. Rice is the world’s most important food crop. Given its nature, location and extension worldwide, irrigated rice fields are invariably used by the native fauna. Determining how communities living in these agroecosystems are shaped is therefore of the utmost concern. The Cerrado, the world’s largest and most diverse savanna is experiencing extreme anthropogenic pressure, with 50% of the biome currently under direct human use. Amphibians are among the world’s most threatened vertebrates, playing keystone roles in ecosystem functioning. Given the inherent complexity of their life cycle, approaching how amphibian populations are affected by anthropogenic activities requires an integrated, multidimensional approach, at multiple scales. This project sought to assess how the anuran community of the Cerrado is being affected by agricultural pressure, assessing the extinction risk, analyzing the selected traits, and variation in taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional diversity at different scales, as well as the functional connectivity of frogs in rice crops. The official extinction risk is underestimated for the anurans of the Cerrado. Breeding site, habitat specialization, and clutch size are predictors of increased extinction risk. The southwest and central regions of the biome are the main hotspots of increased extinction risk, and should be prioritized for conservation. Habitat conversion and crop management caused profound changes to the anuran community, causing increased functional divergence and dramatic loss of functional and phylogenetic diversity in agricultural environments. Anurans with restricted range, habitat specialization, small clutches and large body size were excluded from agricultural environments. Additionally, frogs from agricultural environments had lower body condition. Thus, the conversion of natural vegetation to rice crops results in such environmental stress, that large subsets of species are driven to local extinction irrespective of their specialization, and even the more resilient species exhibit lower body condition. The presence of abundant forest fragments and water bodies is crucial for the maintenance of high levels of functional and phylogenetic diversity, and also to ensure functional connectivity for anuran populations in agricultural landscapes.Atividades antrópicas como a agricultura e a pecuária são as principais causas da perda de biodiversidade. A expansão agrícola é especialmente nociva nos trópicos, onde o investimento agrícola responde a importantes demandas sociais e económicas, e a biodiversidade é especialmente alta e única. O arroz é a cultura alimentar mais importante do mundo. Dada a sua natureza, localização e extensão a nível global, os campos de arroz irrigado são invariavelmente utilizado pela fauna nativas. Determinar como as comunidades que vivem nesses agroecossistemas são afectadas é, portanto, de extrema importância. O Cerrado, a maior e mais diversa savana do planeta, encontra-se sob extrema pressão antropogénica, com 50% do bioma atualmente sob uso humano direto. Os anfíbios estão entre os vertebrados mais ameaçados do planeta, desempenhando papéis de destaque no funcionamento dos ecossistemas. Como o seu ciclo de vida é particularmente complexo, investigar a forma como as populações de anfíbios são afectadas por atividades antropogénicas requer uma abordagem integrada e multidimensional, a várias escalas. Com este projecto pretendeu-se avaliar a forma como a comunidade de anuros do Cerrado está a ser afetada pela pressão agrícola, avaliando o risco de extinção, analisando os traits selecionados, e a variação na diversidade taxonómica, filogenética e funcional em diferentes escalas, bem como a conectividade funcional dos anuros em culturas de arroz. Determinou-se que o risco de extinção de risco oficial dos anfíbios do Cerrado se encontra subestimado. O local de reprodução, habitat e tamanho da postura são preditores de elevado risco de extinção em anuros. O sudoeste e região central do bioma são as principais regiões de espécies de alto risco de extinção, e devem ser priorizados para a conservação. Concluiu-se também que a conversão do habitat e a gestão agrícola causaram profundas alterações na comunidade de anuros, com o aumento da divergência funcional e dramática perda de diversidade funcional e filogenética em ambientes agrícolas. Anuros com distribuição restrita, especialização de habitat, posturas pequenas e grande tamanho corporal foram excluídos dos ambientes agrícolas. Adicionalmente, anuros provenientes de culturas apresentaram menor condição corporal. Assim, a conversão de vegetação natural em plantações de arroz irrigado resulta na extinção local de muitas espécies, independentemente da sua especialização, e no decréscimo dos índices de condição corporal nas espécies mais resistentes. A presença de abundantes fragmentos florestais e de corpos de água é determinante para a manutenção de níveis elevados de diversidade funcional e filogenética, e ainda para assegurar a conectividade funcional para as populações de anuros em paisagens agrícolas

Morphological evolution and modularity of the amphibian skull

Lissamphibia, the only extant, non-amniote tetrapod clade, are morphologically incredibly diverse. However, to date, studies of morphological evolution, phenotypic integration (covariation) and modularity (the division of a structure into sets of integrated traits) have concentrated overwhelmingly on amniotes. In this thesis I quantified cranial morphological variation across two lissamphibian clades, with representative specimens from every extant genus (caecilians) and family (frogs). Shape was captured in detail, using a high-dimensional surface-based geometric morphometric approach, to test alternative models of cranial organisation and reconstruct cranial evolution across caecilians and frogs. I found both frog and caecilian crania are highly modular, and the pattern of cranial integration is strongly conserved across the clades. Of particular interest is the highly integrated, fast-evolving jaw suspensorium region of both frogs and caecilians, suggesting feeding mechanics may be driving cranial evolution in these clades. In addition, ecology exerts a stronger influence on morphology than developmental strategy for both clades. Fossorial, semi-fossorial, and aquatic species are the most disparate and fastest-evolving among frogs, while aquatic caecilian species are the fastest-evolving for that clade. Ossification sequence timing significantly influences integration, evolutionary rate, and disparity across frogs, and there is no simple relationship between integration and evolutionary rate or disparity. Finally, to extend the study of morphological evolution into deep time, I investigated influences on cranial morphology for fossil and extant frogs from the Early Cretaceous to the Recent. Given the extremely dorso-ventrally compressed nature of fossil frogs, I collected two-dimensional cranial outline data for 42 fossil and 93 extant frogs. Phylogeny exerts the strongest influence on cranial morphology, with allometry and developmental strategy acting as only weak influences on cranial outlines. This thesis represents a significant advance in the study of cranial modularity and morphological evolution across frogs and caecilians, unrivalled in shape description, in taxonomic sampling, and in the in-depth exploration of hypotheses of modularity and macroevolutionary patterns

Feeding habits of the leaf litter frog Haddadus binotatus (Anura, Craugastoridae) from two Atlantic Forest areas in southeastern Brazil

Haddadus binotatus is an endemic anuran of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest and currently, there is no information about the diet of this species. We analyzed the diet of two populations of this anuran in two states in southeast Brazil. Samplings were carried out in 2004 in the state of Rio de Janeiro and in 2009 and 2010 in the state of Espírito Santo. Haddadus binotatus presented a rich diet composition, preying 19 prey types. Orthoptera, Coleoptera, and Blattodea were the most important preys in the Rio de Janeiro population, and Orthoptera, Araneae and Hemiptera were the most important in the Espírito Santo population. The diet composition differed numerically between the two localities, but not in terms of volume, which can reflect local differences in the prey availability in the two habitats. The jaw width limited the size of prey, which is expected for predators who swallow the preys without chewing. The proportion of individuals with empty stomachs was higher in the Rio de Janeiro population (39.2%) than in the Espírito Santo population (17.9%), suggesting that the former could be in a lower energy balance. The females of the species were larger than the males, which may result from the production of larger eggs