Abstract
Biogeographic tools support spatial distribution pattern hypotheses and help to determine priority areas for conservation. Our aim was to verify biogeographic patterns for anurans in three mountain complexes in southeastern Brazil, as well as to discuss the status of species conservation recorded and the biogeographical units evaluated. We selected 16 areas distributed in the Serra da Mantiqueira complex, south of Serra do Espinhaço and Serra da Canastra. We used the occurrence (geographic coordinates) of each species in the localities to determine areas of endemism applying the Endemicity Analysis method. We also tested whether similarity between areas was explained by geographic distance (Multiple Regression on distance Matrices-MRM). The Serra do Itatiaia, Serra da Canastra, Plateau of Poços de Caldas and Serra do Cipó were the areas that presented the highest number of species restricted to them. Through the Endemicity Analysis, we identified four areas of endemism with higher scores. The MRM revealed that the geographic distance explained 41% of species dissimilarity between areas. Most of the endemic species from these areas have inaccurate conservation statuses (data deficient or unevaluated). These results highlight the need for greater research efforts towards understanding species restricted by distribution, as well as the priority in conserving these endemic areas.
Highlights
Processes that maintain and produce biological diversity are complex and difficult to measure (Cassemiro and Padial 2008)
The species conservation status, according to the International Union for Nature Conservation (IUCN 2016), had 1.79% presenting some degree of endangerment (i.e., Critically Endangered – CR, Endangered – EM and Vulnerable – VU), 29.31% were data deficient (DD) and 12.57% were not evaluated
When we considered just endemic species of the region (n=64) these values increased to 3.2% for some degree of threat, 51.56% for data deficient and 28.2% were not evaluated (Figure 2)
Summary
Processes that maintain and produce biological diversity are complex and difficult to measure (Cassemiro and Padial 2008). The contributing to the high biological diversity of the continent. This high biodiversity has generated hypothesis about their patterns of establishment, supported by the Pleistocene forest refugia theory (Haffer 1969) and the seasonally dry tropical forest (Prado 2000). Linking distributional data of species and studying areas of endemism is essential for a better view on the biogeography of a given area (Brown et al 1996, Goldani and Carvalho 2003, Carstensen et al 2013). Some informations of the group studied are fundamental as premise for biogeographic studies, such as knowledge about phylogeny and levels of species endemism. As well as previous information of their spatial distributions, and capacity and limits of their dispersion (Goldani and Carvalho 2003)
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