Species diversity and habitat fragmentation: frogs in a tropical montane landscape in Mexico

Abstract

We evaluate the alpha (within patch species richness), beta (spatial turnover among patches) and gamma (landscape) diversity of frogs in a tropical montane cloud forest (TMCF) in central Veracruz, Mexico in order to assess (1) the influence of forest fragmentation on frog assemblages, (2) the importance to diversity of the various elements of the landscape matrix, including the shaded coffee plantations and cattle pastures that surround TMCF and (3) to identify the frog guilds most affected by habitat transformation. We sampled ten sites between May 1998 and November 2000: five TMCF fragments and five anthropogenic habitats. For the entire landscape, we registered 21 species belonging to six families. 100% of these were found in the TMCF fragments and 62% in the surrounding mosaic of anthropogenic habitats. Gamma diversity (γ) is determined to a greater extent by species exchange (β) than by local species richness (α). Elevational variation, the degree of conservation of the vegetation canopy and fragment size appear to determine the species diversity of this landscape. Large species, terrestrial species, those whose eggs develop outside water, and those whose larvae develop in the water seemed to be most affected by habitat transformation. On its own, even the largest and most species-rich cloud forest fragment is not capable of preserving the current anuran diversity. Neither are the shaded coffee plantations that are interspersed among and link the patches of TMCF. However together they form a diverse system of habitats crucial to species conservation in this landscape.