Rapid survey of the herpetofauna in an area of forest management in eastern Acre, Brazil

Daniele Bazzo Miranda,Nathocley Mendes Venâncio,Saymon De Albuquerque

doi:10.15560/10.4.893

Abstract

Timber exploitation is the most profitable and popular use of forest. To evaluate how this activity affects biodiversity is of crucial importance for conservation. Therefore, we carried out a herpetofauna survey in a forest area under a reduced–impact management, in Sena Madureira municipality, state of Acre (Brazil). We used active searching, both day and night, and pitfall traps. In the pre-exploitation phase the search was conducted basically in forests and forest edges; in the post-exploitation phase we also searched in sites such as secondary roads, skid trails and timber storage yards. We recorded 38 amphibian species and 28 reptile species; 17 snakes, nine lizards and two crocodilians. It is expected that this survey can contribute to programs of environmental monitoring in forest management areas in Amazonia.

Highlights

The Amazon has approximately 60% of the forest remnants of the world (Whitmore 1997)
The deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon are measured by the “Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais” (INPE), with visual interpretation of Landsat images through the Amazon Deforestation Project (PRODES; INPE 2009)
The greatest number of anurans were found in the forest: 30 species in the inner forest, six associated with temporary ponds in the forest and 12 in temporary ponds formed on roads and in timber storage yards

Summary

Introduction

The Amazon has approximately 60% of the forest remnants of the world (Whitmore 1997). The deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon are measured by the “Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais” (INPE), with visual interpretation of Landsat images through the Amazon Deforestation Project (PRODES; INPE 2009). These data are considered scientifically sound, though underestimated (Laurance et al 2002), since the method does not detect other human activities such as changes that cause loss of forest canopy, such as superficial fires, edge effects, hunting, small scale mining and selective logging (Cochrane et al 1999; Nepstad et al 1999). Industrial logging has been dramatically increasing in the Amazon (Laurance et al 2001), with expansion rates of 12,000–20,000 km2.year-1, a value that is very similar to deforestation rates (Malhi et al 2008)

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