Abstract
The montane cloud forests of the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca (SMO) host a remarkable herpetofauna diversity and represent one of the most important areas of endemism for Mexico and Mesoamerica. Although the area has been previously studied, most of the extant records for this group are biased to locations accessed by paved roads. In addition, an important proportion of this territory is conserved by Indigenous and Community Conservation Areas (ICCA), but little information of the species occurring within these areas exists. Therefore, information on the distribution of many endemic taxa in this region to date is either underestimated or incomplete. With the aim of increasing the ecological and distributional knowledge of this group in remote areas, we carried out field surveys in Santa Cruz Tepetotutla Oaxaca, a locality 25 km in a straight line to the closest paved road that conserves 9,670 ha of land through the ICCAs modality. Surveys were made during 2018 and 2019, including both dry and wet seasons. A total of 40 species of amphibians and reptiles were recorded: 32.5% of these records represent distributional range extensions, while 20% represent altitudinal range extensions. A total of 17.5% are records of species under a high risk category, highlighting both the relevance of studying remote areas to increase species population knowledge and the role of community conservation actions for species persistence. Finally, our records include the rediscovery of Rhadinella schistosa, a species undetected for more than 50 years.
Highlights
The planet is experiencing a well-documented biodiversity crisis where amphibians and reptiles are the two most threatened vertebrate groups (Hoffmann et al 2010)
We found seven individuals perching on the leaves of ferns adjacent to streams both in primary montane cloud forest and in disturbed areas surrounded by coffee and banana plantations
We provide the first herpetofaunal checklist for Santa Cruz Tepetotutla located in the Chinantla Region
Summary
The planet is experiencing a well-documented biodiversity crisis where amphibians and reptiles are the two most threatened vertebrate groups (Hoffmann et al 2010) Most of their declines have been recorded in the Neotropics where species with restricted distributions and high degree of endemism occur and where habitat loss, climate change, introduced species and diseases are a constant threat (Brooks et al 2002; Whitfield et al 2007; Whitfield et al 2014). Oaxaca is the State with the largest surface area under the Indigenous and Community Conservation Areas (ICCA) system, with a total of 1296.90 km, representing 23.36% of the ICCA’s area nationwide (García-Mendoza et al 2014; Mata-Silva et al 2015; CONANP 2020) Many of these areas are immersed in the Chinantla, Mazateca, Mixe and Zoque ethnic regions, located many kilometres away from paved roads (CONANP 2020)
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