Ecological and Conservation Correlates of Rarity in New World Pitvipers

Irina Birskis-Barros,Paulo I Prado,Laura R V Alencar,Marcio Martins,Monika Böhm

doi:10.3390/d11090147

Irina Birskis-Barros, Paulo I Prado + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/d11090147

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Abstract

Rare species tend to be especially sensitive to habitat disturbance, making them important conservation targets. Thus, rarity patterns might be an important guide to conservation efforts. Rabinowitz’s approach defines rarity using a combination of geographical range, habitat specificity, and local abundance, and is frequently used in conservation prioritization. Herein, we use Rabinowitz’s approach to classify the New World (NW) pitvipers (family Viperidae) regarding rarity. We tested whether body size and latitude could predict rarity, and we compared rarity patterns with extinction risk assessments and other prioritization methods in order to detect rare species not classified as threatened or prioritized. Most NW pitvipers have large geographical ranges, high local abundances, and narrow habitat breadths. There are 11.8% of NW pitviper species in the rarest category and they occur along the Pacific coast of Mexico, in southern Central America, in the Andean region of Ecuador, and in eastern Brazil. Rarity in NW pitvipers is inversely related to latitude but is not related to body size. Our results indicate that additional species of NW pitvipers are threatened and/or should be prioritized for conservation. Combining complementary approaches to detect rare and threatened species may substantially improve our knowledge on the conservation needs of NW pitvipers.

Highlights

There is growing evidence that rare species play key ecological roles in the functioning and structuring of communities [1–3]
Using intermediate, 33.8% are in low intermediate, 2and 17.3% are in log-linear models, we found significant, positive associations between geographical range (GR) and habitat breadth (HB)
We found an association between geographical range and habitat breadth in New World (NW) pitvipers

Summary

Introduction

There is growing evidence that rare species play key ecological roles in the functioning and structuring of communities [1–3]. Rare species tend to be more affected by habitat disturbance compared to common species [4–6], and should comprise important targets of conservation programs [6]. In the context of populations and communities, ecologists tend to define rare species as those showing low abundance and/or a small distribution area (see reviews in [7,8]). The meaning of rare is usually associated with extinction risk [6], given that low abundance and small distribution areas are linked to heightened extinction risk of species [9]. The term rarity has been broadly used, a more precise concept of rarity was proposed by Rabinowitz [10] as a combination of three components: Small geographical range, high habitat specificity, and low local abundance

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