Abstract
Abstract The Conde municipality is located in the northern coast of the state of Bahia (NC), northeastern Brazil, and is part of the Atlantic Tropical domain. The anuran fauna of the northern portion of the NC is still poorly known if compared to the southern portion. The Restinga is one of the predominant environments of the coastal plains of the NC and it is characterized essentially by presenting sandy soil covered by herbaceous and shrubby vegetation. The objective of this study was to determine the anuran species composition and diversity for the Restinga of the Conde municipality. Sampling was carried out at night by active search over four periods of five consecutive days each, two over the 'main rainy season' and two in a 'lesser rainy season', using 14 sample units (SUs) and five extra sample plots (EPs). We calculated dominance and species diversity using the Berger-Parker and Shannon-Wiener H' indices, respectively. We used accumulation curves and the Jackknife 1 estimator to estimate anuran species richness, considering only the data obtained from the SUs. We recorded 713 anuran specimens distributed within 33 species, 13 genera and five families (Bufonidae, Craugastoridae, Hylidae, Leptodactylidae and Microhylidae). The Hylidae and Leptodactylidae families had the highest species richness. Considering only the SUs (Jackknife 1 estimator in brackets), we recorded 28 species in the study area (33.9 ± 2.3), 13 in Shrubby Vegetation Zones - SVZ (20.8 ± 2.9) and 25 in Freshwater Wetland Zones - FWZ (28.9 ± 1.9). The abundance and species diversity of the FWZ (n = 638 specimens; H'= 2.4) were higher than those recorded for the SVZ (n = 52 specimens; H' = 1.9). The SVZ and FWZ showed distinct dominant species, wherein Pristimantis paulodutrai was the dominant species in SVZ and Scinax fuscomarginatus in FWZ. The Restinga of the Conde municipality stands out as the one with the highest anuran species richness already recorded considering only SVZ and FWZ. Moreover, its anuran species composition represented 55% of the anuran species known for the NC and included taxa common to three different morphoclimatic domains (Tropical Atlantic, Cerrado and Caatinga).
Highlights
The northern coast of the state of Bahia (NC) is part of the Tropical Atlantic Domain (Ab’Sáber 1977) and is essentially covered by the Atlantic Forest, a global biodiversity hotspot (Myers et al 2000)
We sampled a total of 713 individuals, distributed in five families (Bufonidae, Craugastoridae, Hylidae, Leptodactylidae and Microhylidae), 13 genera and 33 species (Table 2; Figures 3-6)
Considering only the sample units (SUs), we recorded 690 individuals distributed in five families, 13 genera and 28 species, in which the most abundant species were Scinax fuscomarginatus (n = 145 individuals, 21%), Pseudopaludicola mystacalis (n = 121, 17.5%), Leptodactylus macrosternum (n = 66, 9.5%) and Pleurodema diplolister (n = 64, 9.2%)
Summary
The northern coast of the state of Bahia (NC) is part of the Tropical Atlantic Domain (Ab’Sáber 1977) and is essentially covered by the Atlantic Forest, a global biodiversity hotspot (Myers et al 2000). The Restinga is one of the environments that shape this domain and is continuously distributed along the 200 km of coastal plains of the NC This is a Quaternary habitat, characterized by sandy soils with high salt concentration, and covered predominantly by herbaceous and shrubby xerophytic vegetation under direct sunlight, the ‘open Restinga’ of Xavier et al (2015). This is the case for the amphibian fauna, for which studies are concentrated in its southern portion and emphasizing forest patches in the Mata de São João municipality (e.g., Juncá 2006, Bastazini et al 2007, Dabés et al 2012). The lack of information about amphibians in their natural environments hinders conservation actions (Rocha et al 2008), as is the case for the Restingas of the NC
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