Amphibians of Vassununga State Park, one of the last remnants of semideciduous Atlantic Forest and Cerrado in northeastern São Paulo state, Brazil

Ronildo Alves Benício,Fernando Rodrigues Da Silva

doi:10.1590/1676-0611-bn-2016-0197

Ronildo Alves Benício, Fernando Rodrigues Da Silva

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1590/1676-0611-bn-2016-0197

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Journal: Biota Neotropica	Publication Date: Jan 1, 2017
Citations: 2	License type: cc-by

Affiliation: Universidade Federal de São Carlos

Abstract

Abstract Although São Paulo state has one of the best known amphibian fauna in Brazil, there are still protected areas for which the species composition remains unknown. Here, we present the first species list of anuran amphibians in Vassununga State Park. This area is one of the last remnants of semideciduous Atlantic Forest and Cerrado in the northeastern region of São Paulo state, southeastern Brazil. To survey species, we visited six sites (two ponds, two streams, and two transects) in December, January, and February of 2014-2015 and 2015-2016, totalizing 18 days of field samplings at each site. We recorded 24 anuran species belonging to four families: Bufonidae (2 species), Hylidae (11 species), Leptodactylidae (10 species), and Microhylidae (1 species). Anurans consist mainly of generalist and widely distributed species. Although none of the species recorded are threatened with extinction according to the International Red List of Endangered Species (IUCN), four species have declining population and another three species have unknown population trends.

Highlights

Knowing the species composition of a region is important because it is the basic dataset for ecology, systematics, biogeography, and conservation biology (e.g., Collen et al 2008; Da Silva et al 2012, 2014)
It is recognized that Brazil has an amazing amphibian diversity (1080 species; Segalla et al 2016), with the São Paulo state harboring 22% of known species (Rossa-Feres et al 2011)
The large number of anuran species associated with water bodies in Cerrado and semideciduous forest fragments during the reproductive period has been demonstrated in other studies (Brasileiro et al 2005, Bertoluci et al 2007, Araujo et al 2009, Santos et al 2009, Araujo & Almeida-Santos 2011, 2013, Valdujo et al 2012)

Summary

Introduction

Knowing the species composition of a region is important because it is the basic dataset for ecology, systematics, biogeography, and conservation biology (e.g., Collen et al 2008; Da Silva et al 2012, 2014). The amphibian fauna of São Paulo state is one of the best known in the country, there are still considerable herpetological survey gaps in some regions (Rossa‐Feres et al 2011). The increased number of anuran surveys in the last decade has contributed to records of new species in the inland areas of the state (Vasconcelos et al 2006, Prado et al 2008, Da Silva et al 2009, 2010). Even protected areas such as the Vassununga State Park (created in 1970) still have not been subject to a complete faunal survey. We provide the first list of anuran species of the Vassununga State Park, a region considered to be a geographical gap in the inventories of species in the Sao Paulo state, Brazil

Study area

Research Design and Field Methods

Data Analysis

Results and Discussion