Abstract
Many regions around the world concentrate a large number of highly endangered species that have very restricted distributions. The mountainous region of central Veracruz, Mexico, is considered a priority area for amphibian conservation because of its high level of endemism and the number of threatened species. The original tropical montane cloud forest in the region has been dramatically reduced and fragmented and is now mainly confined to ravines and hillsides. We evaluated the current situation of amphibian diversity in the cloud forest fragments of this region by analyzing species richness and abundance, comparing assemblage structure and species composition, examining the distribution and abundance of threatened species, and identifying the local and landscape variables associated with the observed amphibian diversity. From June to October 2012 we sampled ten forest fragments, investing 944 person-hours of sampling effort. A total of 895 amphibians belonging to 16 species were recorded. Notable differences in species richness, abundance, and assemblage structure between forest fragments were observed. Species composition between pairs of fragments differed by an average of 53%, with the majority (58%) resulting from species replacement and the rest (42%) explained by differences in species richness. Half of the species detected are under threat of extinction according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and although their distribution and abundance varied markedly, there were also ubiquitous and abundant species, along with rare species of restricted distribution. The evident heterogeneity of the ten study sites indicates that to conserve amphibians in a mountainous region such as this one it is necessary to protect groups of fragments which represent the variability of the system. Both individually and together cloud forest fragments are very important to conservation because each remnant is inhabited by several threatened species, some of them at imminent risk of extinction.
Highlights
Several sites around the world are home to a large number of highly endangered species, the distribution of which is very restricted
Six of the species that inhabit tropical montane cloud forest (TMCF) are in imminent danger of extinction according to the Alliance for Zero Extinction [6] and several species have been targeted by the Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) program that highlights and seeks to conserve one-of-a-kind species that are on the verge of extinction
Our results show that in a region as severely transformed as our study area, forest fragments offer suitable conditions for maintaining a portion of amphibian species of the region, including a significant number of threatened and critically endangered species
Summary
Several sites around the world are home to a large number of highly endangered species, the distribution of which is very restricted. These sites, mainly located in tropical forest, on islands. The mountainous region of central Veracruz, in eastern Mexico, is considered a priority area for amphibian conservation, for this country [4,5] and globally, since half of the species that have been recorded there are threatened according to the IUCN [3] and this exceeds the world average. The region is exceptionally diverse in salamanders because it contains representatives of five genera: Bolitoglossa, Chiropterotriton, Parvimolge, Pseudoeurycea and Thorius [7]
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