Cattle Ranching Research Articles

Cattle ranchers' tolerance to jaguar revealed through a spectrum of intended behaviours across a gradient of losses in a gamified survey-based field experiment

Promoting tolerance towards wildlife that pose a threat to humans or their livelihoods is critical to achieving species conservation goals. While conservation discourses often revolve around retaliation, tolerance and intolerance can vary from passive acceptance to active support, and according to level and scale of loss. We developed an experimental tool with a gamified survey-based field experiment to test multiple intended behaviours along a gradient of livestock loss to predation by jaguars (Panthera onca) in Calakmul, Mexico. Using a within-subject design, participants played a card-choice game against livestock loss scenarios. The choices offered were “No action [taken]”, “Protect [domestic animals]”, “Kill [the jaguar]”. First, our experimental design was validated by increased frequencies of “Kill” responses in reaction to hypothetical jaguar incursion with increasing damage. The greatest difference occurred between zero and minimal damage (one chicken), showing that whether damage occurs at all is at least as important as its extent. Secondly, average frequency of intentional retaliation to jaguar incursion was higher for participants who had already killed a jaguar. Finally, age, education, and ethnicity all correlated with intentional behaviours to implement preventive measure or kill jaguars. Past experience of attack had no effect. Our results showed that survey/game-based experiments can assess tolerance to potentially hazardous wildlife interactions, while allowing more nuanced understandings of people's tolerance on a gradient of loss. This allows us to move away from a dualistic model of “conflict” versus “coexistence” towards a more complex understanding incorporating individual attitudes and experience, cultural significance, and socio-economic context.

Dung beetles diversity and their role in nutrient cycling in livestock systems of the dry Chaco

Dung beetles represent one of the main animal groups involved in the cycling of cattle dung, modifying soil physicochemical properties, and reducing parasite incidence. However, their diversity and activity in cattle areas depends on conserving critical resources and conditions, including native vegetative composition, microclimatic and soil conditions. Whereas most previous studies were conducted in humid forests, our objective was to experimentally study the diversity and role of dung beetles in soil nutrient dynamics in native forests and shrub savannas with cattle ranching in the dry Chaco of Argentina. Using pitfall traps, we collected dung beetles in both habitats. In cow exclusions, we buried two plastic containers filled with soil and two kg of fresh cow dung on the surface and covered one with a mosquito net to prevent the access of dung beetles. After three months, we collected soil samples and analyzed nutrient contents and soil structure. Contrary to previous studies, the abundance and richness of dung beetles were higher in savannas than in native forests. In both habitats, the activity of dung beetles strongly increases phosphorous and potassium contents; however, consistent with the higher abundance, this effect was more marked in shrub savannas. In addition, we observed higher contents of total organic carbon, electrical conductivity, and calcium in native forests. Our results emphasize the critical role of dung beetles in maintaining soil quality in the most extended cattle management practices of the dry Chaco. Moreover, our results were opposite to previous studies conducted in humid forests, which could be associated with greater tolerance of native species to extreme microclimate conditions in the dry Chaco.

Exploring The Symbiotic Economic Benefits Between Farmers and Herders to Promote Peaceful Coexistence in Taraba State Nigeria

This paper explored the symbiotic economic benefits between farmers and herders in Taraba State to promote peaceful coexistence. Taraba State is one of the states in the North East region of Nigeria that is mainly affected by the farmers-herders crisis. The paper illustrated the causes of the farmers-herders crisis which include the growing population, abandonment of the grazing reserve system, and proliferation of small arms and light weapons among others. Although the Federal and State Governments have responded in several ways, among which the creation of grazing reserves in 1965, the establishment of the National Commission for Nomadic Education (NCNE) in 1989, the use of the Armed Forces to curb internal security caused by farmers-herders crisis, proposed National Grazing Reserve Bill 2016, proposed Cattle Ranching System 2018, legislation prohibiting open grazing and the Great Green Wall Agency of the Federal Government. All these efforts by the Federal Government and various State Governments could not bring the desired peaceful coexistence between farmers and herders. The crisis still lingered in Taraba State and many other states. Therefore, the paper explored the symbiotic economic benefits that could be enjoyed by farmers and herders leading to peaceful coexistence. Some of the symbiotic economic benefits capable of stimulating peaceful coexistence are; after harvesting crops on their farm, they usually allow cattle to graze on the leftovers, during which excrement from the cows provide manure for the farm, use of yam and cassava peels for preparation of animal feeds, use of rice, guinea corn, maize, and millet chaff for animal feeds and use of animal waste as fertilizer. The author concluded that exploring the symbiotic economic benefits explicated in this paper can bring about peaceful coexistence between farmers and herders which will also result in a peaceful Taraba State. It was suggested that government and private individuals should establish ranches within farming communities in such a manner that herders can get animal feeds from farmers while the farmers get manure from the herders’ farms.

The colonisation of rainfed land in al-Andalus: an unknown aspect of the eleventh-century economic expansion

ABSTRACT Since the 1980s, there have been significant advancements in the study of the development of rural Andalusi settlement linked to irrigated agriculture, both in relation to large suburban green belts and to the small hydraulic systems of rural communities in mountainous regions. However, recent investigations in several dry areas and, in particular, the intensive archaeological survey that we have been carrying out in the eastern sector of La Mancha, reveal a densely populated rural region that responds to a hitherto unknown pattern. It consists of small villages on the plain, devoid of community defence elements and inhabited by peasants who made the best of the only existing natural resources that have traditionally oriented the region's economy towards cattle ranching and rainfed agriculture. Most of the villages seem to have developed from the beginning of the eleventh century, disappearing at the end of the same century due to the increase in insecurity after the Christian conquest of Toledo in 1085. Their existence would be associated with a general context of population growth that intensified the competition between urban elites and peasants for the privileged agricultural areas and, as a result, the colonisation of less favourable production areas.

A spatial regression analysis of Colombia’s narcodeforestation with factor decomposition of multiple predictors

In the current accelerated process of global warming, forest conservation is becoming more difficult to address in developing countries, where woodlands are often fueling the illegal economy. In Colombia, the issue of narcodeforestation is of great concern, because of the ramification of narcoactivities that are affecting forests, such as agribusinesses and cattle ranching for money laundering. In this study, we use spatially explicit regressions incorporating a factor decomposition of predictors through principal component analysis to understand the impact of coca plantations on global and local-scale deforestation in Colombia. At national level we find a positive and statistically significant relationship between coca crops and deforestation. At the regional level, in two out of four regions, it appears that coca is causing deforestation, especially in the Department of Northern Santander and on the Pacific coast. The spatial models used reveal not only a direct effect but also positive and significant spillover effects, in line with the conjecture that narcodeforestation is not only due to the quest for new areas to expand coca-cultivation, which would determine a loss of forest only in the municipality where coca cultivation increases, but also to the need to launder illegal profits, or create clandestine routes and airplane strips, which can affect forests also in nearby municipalities.

Preliminary Survey of Mycotoxins Identified from Florida Bahiagrass Pastures

The beef cattle ranchers in Florida reported some health issues related to cattle grazing on warm-season grass pastures, such as bahiagrass and bermudagrass. The illness was not attributable to nutritional imbalances, or other possible causes. The focus then turned to what the animals were consuming, and forages were implicated. In general, the forages in Florida are just fine; however, sometimes under certain circumstances the fungi live in our forages may produce “secondary metabolites”. All forages harbor fungi. Some fungi are good in that they aid our forages to grow better, helping to mine nutrients from the soil or atmosphere. Sometimes they are not so good, like when high levels of ergotized seed occur in the seed heads of bahiagrass.

Soil erosion assessment in the Amazon basin in the last 60 years of deforestation

Anthropic activities in the Amazon basin have been compromising the environmental sustainability of this complex biome. The main economic activities depend on the deforestation of the rainforest for pasture cattle ranching and agriculture. This study analyzes soil erosion to understand how deforestation has impacted the Amazon basin in this context, using three land-use temporal maps (1960, 1990, 2019) through the revised universal soil loss equation (RUSLE). Our results point to a significant influence of deforestation due to the expansion of agricultural and livestock activities on soil erosion rates in the Amazon Basin. The average soil erosion rate has increased by more than 600% between 1960 and 2019, ranging from 0.015 Mg ha−1 year−1 to 0.117 Mg ha−1 year−1. During this period, deforestation of the Amazon rainforest was approximately 7% (411,857 km2), clearly the leading cause of this increase in soil erosion, especially between 1990 and 2019. The south and southeast regions are the most impacted by increasing soil erosion, in which deforestation was accelerated for expanding agriculture and livestock activities, mainly in the sub-basins of the Madeira, Solimões, Xingu, and Tapajós that present soil erosion increases of 390%, 350%, 280%, and 240%, respectively. The sub-basins with the highest sediment delivery rate (SDR) are under the influence of the Andes, highlighting Solimões (27%), Madeira (13%), and Negro (6%) due to the increase in the soil erosion rate increase in these sub-basins.

A case study on conflict intensity between humans and elephants at Teknaf Wildlife Sanctuary, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh

Humans’ and elephants’ conflict is considered a common phenomenon in Bangladesh due to extreme anthropogenic interferences on elephant habitats. Concurrently, the landless people were encouraged to encroach on forest land due to their financial hardship and poor and weak forest management systems. We conducted our research work through frequent field visits, site-oriented positioned research correspondents, and an adopted semistructured questionnaire. We recorded a total of 903 conflict-related cases between humans and elephants, including crop raids (N= 337), house raids (N= 200), homestead garden raids (N= 263), and accidental attacks (N= 103), across sites, during August 2018 to July 2019, in Teknaf Wildlife Sanctuary (TWS). Elephant attack rates varied significantly between traditional forest dwellers (N= 179), illegal settlers (N= 370), villagers nearest forest (N= 212), Rohingya refugees (N= 53), and traditional forest different tribes (N= 89). It also varied along a space gradient, including inside forests (N= 423), buffer zones (N= 297), and outside forest villages (N= 183). The number of conflicts possessed by elephants varied discriminately and was unparalleled among different professions such as cattle ranchers (N= 104), gardeners (N= 112), paddy cultivators (N= 236), vegetable growers (N= 158), betel-leaf growers (N= 163), and forest resources collectors (N= 130). Most conflicts between humans and elephants occurred significantly during the night (N= 592), many during the morning (N= 154), evening (N= 138), and much less during midday (N= 19). The conflict intensity was also higher on the east coast (N= 552) than on the west coast (N= 351). The seasonal variation, including summer (N= 367), monsoon (N= 274), and winter (N= 262), was also significant. The elephant herd size was also an important factor triggering the conflict in TWS. We conclude that conflict intensity between humans and elephants is driven by settlers’ location, forest gradient, the profession of forest-dependent people, their household size and income level, attack time, and season.

The effect of chronic disturbance on the woody plant diversity in a tropical dry forest of Central Mexico

After deforestation, forest fragments can be impacted by chronic disturbances (e.g., small-scale constant wood extraction), which can alter the forest's richness and composition, favoring a few generalist species while forest specialist species decline. We tested the effect of chronic disturbance along a disturbance gradient in a tropical dry forest (TDF) of central Mexico, including mature, disturbed, and secondary forests. In the Río Apatlaco sub-basin, central Mexico, we randomly chose 73 fragments (23 mature, 25 disturbed, and 25 secondaries). Along a 0.1-ha transect within each fragment, we identified and measured the diameter at breast height of all plants (DBH ≥ 1 cm, height >1.30 m) and the number of dead trees (snags), stumps, trees with scars of machete/axe, and trees with carbonized trunks. We also quantified the number of cowpats within the transect. We calculated true diversity metrics and pairwise Morisita-Horn similarities. Disturbance diminished from the mature to the secondary forest, while diversity followed the opposite pattern. Along this gradient, distance to the nearest town directly increases plant diversities. An ordination based on floristic composition showed a mixture of forest types, mainly because the disturbed forest became split between secondary and mature forests. This divergence split can be explained because, in some disturbed forests, disturbance-prone pioneer species were favored, and these species were also common in secondary forests. In contrast, the most abundant species in some other disturbed forests are late-successional species. The data suggest that the main drivers of forest change are wood extraction and cattle ranching. Wood extraction generates gaps in the forest, and the cattle can then disperse seeds of pioneer species within these gaps.

Good life in the Amazon? A critical reflection on the standard of living of cocoa and cattle-based smallholders in Pará, Brazil

The balance between environment and economic stability is key to sustainable rural development. This is particularly true in the agricultural frontier areas along the Transamazon Highway and Southern Pará in the Brazilian Amazon, where thousands of migrant families have settled in the forests over the past 50 years in search of a better life. To better understand the extent to which sustainable development is possible in such a context, this study examined the standard of living that smallholders who grow cocoa can achieve compared to those who raise cattle, and what this means for forest conservation. An analysis of 95 households revealed that both livelihood strategies may generate an acceptable standard of living despite significant logistical and environmental challenges. This was observed even more so for families who combined both production systems. The availability of technology and the size of landholdings had the greatest impact on the standard of living expressed in income and housing conditions. The majority of the analyzed households, especially those involved in cattle ranching, converted their forests for economic success. The pure cocoa farmers behaved differently, but also cleared large areas of forest and may continue to do so. The findings suggest that achieving sustainable local development in Amazonian agricultural frontiers requires large and well-coordinated investments by competent public and private actors not only in building and optimizing sustainable production systems such as cocoa agroforestry but also in significantly improving social rural infrastructure.

Making MalagasyZebu: The Biopolitics of Cattle Commodification in Socialist Madagascar, 1960–1978

AbstractAt the dawn of Madagascar’s independence in 1960, political entrepreneurs harnessed the enduring significance of Malagasy cattle, known aszebu, and declared them integral to the new national identity. From 1960–1972, President Philibert Tsiranana led the country through the period known as the First Republic, in which officials and technocrats launched development projects around breeding and constructing abattoirs and feedlots, in the hopes of creating a viable international meat export economy. For elites,zebuserved as speculative vessels for remaking economic and political geographies and shifting away from dependence on French interests. Malagasy government officials and technical experts saw pastoralists as key to actualizing the economic potential of cattle and they sought to combat “peasant idleness” as a hindrance to Madagascar’s flourishing. Pastoralists, though, challenged the bounds of top-down authority and debated the kinds of knowledge that could and should inform modernization projects in the new nation-state. Cattle ranchers’ critiques of the logics and encroachment of prescriptive modernization schemes during the 1960s and 1970s can be understood as their insistence on sharing in the fruits of independence, and that they, with their deep knowledge of cattle behavior, had a role to play in forging meaningful, prosperous lives in broader ancestor-focused cosmologies. Investigating the twinned history of Madagascar’s beef exportation and cattle modernization plans reveals how cattle were enlisted in the project of nation-making and a crucial moment of possibility, in which state-crafters ambitiously pursued a path toward self-determination while navigating oscillating geopolitics and asymmetrical global economic relations.

Fire in Savannas and its Impact on Avifauna: Considerations for a Better Environmental Conservation

Savannas are a pyrophytic biome, a biodiversity hotspot, and have global importance, occupying 20% of the Earth's surface. It is a biome that requires burning to maintain its biodiversity and pyrodiversity. It has suffered from altered fire regimes due to the direct and indirect action of factors such as deforestation, agriculture, cattle ranching, and climate change, resulting in habitat loss, degradation, and fragmentation. This fact can impact the avifauna, changing population dynamics and distribution in the landscape. Thus, through a literature search, this study evaluated the influences of fire on avifauna populations in savannas. It was found that fire impacts avifauna directly or indirectly and acts positively or negatively, according to the niche of the species evaluated and its intrinsic characteristics. The observed effect will depend on the fire detection ability, locomotion capacity, species, habit, functional guild, demographic parameters, resource availability, post-disturbance successional evolution, dispersal ability, and the geographic scale of the area affected by the fire. The main impacts observed for this clade are indirect effects, and its most negatively impacted populations are the ratites and those with poor locomotion ability. Despite the many gaps in knowledge about the impact of fire on the population parameters of avifauna, studies that focus on community dynamics indicate that, in general, there are few changes in richness and abundance indices. Thus, a greater understanding of the consequences of fire on birds is necessary to support better the actions of the Integrated Fire Management Program and its expansion throughout the Brazilian territory in search of quality, dynamic, and integrated environmental management.

Sistema de sesmarias y la fundación de la colonialidad del territorio en Piauí

This study aims to characterize the first moment of construction of the subjectivity of land as a commodity in the state of Piauí, Brazil, one of the marks of coloniality Aníbal Quijano conceptualized. The study involved bibliographic research and documental research. It examines the sesmarias regime, a policy used as a mediator in the main conflicts between colonizers. Through this policy, the colonizers could ensure the appropriation of land and almost all the richness of the territory of native peoples and the destruction of territorialities. The cattle ranch was the most important territorial unit in colonial Piauí because it transcended the importance of the sesmarias as documentary ballast, transforming itself into the territoriality that supports the appropriation over large areas supported by the imprecision of the limits of the productive unit. In the colonial period, the function of land was still incompatible with the function of commodity, but the sesmarias regime was the institution transported from the metropolis to impregnate the underlying symbologies of the colonizer as something not contestable, erasing the other symbologies not recognized or despised

PEMETAAN KERAPATAN VEGETASI DALAM MENCEGAH ABLASI DAS KRUENG ACEH DENGAN MENGGUNAKAN SISTEM INFORMASI GEOGRAFIS (SIG) DI KECAMATAN MONTASIK

The river in Montasik District is a sub-watershed of Krueng Aceh. The Krueng Aceh watershed flows from upstream in Cot Seuke Aceh Besar, to downstream at Darmaga Nelayan Lampulo, Banda Aceh. The water level of the Krueng Aceh river in Montasik District often increases during the rainy season. The increase in river water levels was caused by high-intensity rain and shipments from upstream areas, causing trees to fall on the banks of the river, river ablation, river water soaking the community's plantations and cattle ranches, and river water also overflowing into the soccer field beside the river. The purpose of this study is to identify and map the vegetation density of the Krueng Aceh watershed using GIS in Montasik District. The method used in this research is a qualitative approach, using descriptive research methods. The data collection technique in this study was through documentation, namely data from Landsat 8 satellite imagery in 2020 and administrative maps. The results showed that the vegetation density level in the Krueng Aceh Lower Watershed in Montasik District was divided into four classes, namely very low density of 2%, low vegetation level of 5%, medium vegetation density of 9%, and high vegetation level of 84%. The level of vegetation density in the Krueng Aceh watershed, Montasik sub-district, is dominated by high vegetation of 84%, meaning that there is a lot of vegetation along the river, so that it can prevent ablation or erosion on the river surface. Because in dense vegetation the possibility of erosion will be smaller than the vegetation that grows sparsely. Keywords: Vegetation Density, Geographic Information System (GIS)

Determinants and costs of strategic enrollment of landowners in a payments for ecosystem services program in a deforestation hotspot: The Argentine Chaco forest

Understanding landowners’ decisions about how much land to enroll in payments for ecosystem services (PES) programs is essential to strategically target lands for conservation, prevent forest fragmentation, and thus maintain ecosystem services. In this study, we targeted private lands surrounding and connecting public protected areas in a deforestation hotspot, the Argentine Chaco forest. We used alternatively configured PES contracts in choice experiments to understand landowners’ decisions regarding how much land to enroll in PES. We found that factors influencing decisions on how much land to enroll differ from those influencing willingness to participate in PES. The percentage of their property that landowners were willing to enroll in the program increased with higher payments and permitted land use that closely aligned with traditional land use, specifically cattle ranching under tree canopy. Contract length was important in willingness to enroll but not in amount of land enrolled. Payments required to enroll all land in our study area, and thus conserve an unfragmented landscape, exceeded the financial resources of the Argentine PES program. Designing PES to enroll private lands on smaller strategic areas, in conjunction with other conservation initiatives, would be more effective than attempting to use PES alone to conserve large landscapes.

Cattle Ranching and Farmer-Herder Conflict in Ghana: Views of Nomadic Herders

Cattle Ranching and Farmer-Herder Conflict in Ghana: Views of Nomadic Herders

Pesticide Pollution in the Brazilian Pampa: Detrimental Impacts on Ecosystems and Human Health in a Neglected Biome

The Brazilian Pampa biome covers half of Rio Grande do Sul state, in the extreme south of Brazil, creating an ecotone zone with the Atlantic Forest and bordering Pampa’s territory belonging to Uruguay and Argentina. Pampa is a non-forest biome mainly composed of grasslands and mosaics of grassland-forest vegetation. This biome shows significant animal and plant diversity, contributing to the maintenance of important ecosystem services, including CO2 capture, pollination, and water cycle regulation. However, forestry plantations, inappropriate cattle ranching, mining activities, unplanned urbanization, and the cultivation of monocultures (soy, rice, tobacco, and other cash crops) significantly threaten the conservation of the Pampa biome. A major problem observed in the Pampa, due to the great connection of this biome with agricultural areas, is pesticide pollution, which significantly affects the health of humans and animals that occupy the region. A robust body of evidence indicates that aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems in the Brazilian Pampa are extensively contaminated with pesticides, as indicated by studies involving animal biomarkers and pesticide analyses performed on water and soil samples. Human studies also suggest that pesticides affect different body systems, facilitating the onset of various chronic diseases. Brazil’s conservation actions and policies have a special focus on forest ecosystems, neglecting non-forest biomes and thus aggravating the problems related to Pampa’s conservation. In this article, we discuss some problems caused by pesticide pollution in the Brazilian Pampa, drawing attention to the need for intensification of policies focused on the promotion of human and environmental health. Finally, we suggest the bioecological bioeconomy as an alternative for Rio Grande do Sul to progress its economic development but with less dependency on detrimental activities to the Pampa biome.

Assessment of factors responsible for farmers-herders conflict in Benue state north central, Nigeria¬

Beyond the aggravating effects of climate change on both sedentary agrarian farming communities and the pastoral herders, are other man made factors, which could be seen in the persistent occurrence of farmers-herders conflicts in Benue State and across various parts of Nigeria, thus a clog in the wheel of progress to national development and cohesion. It was against this background that this study engaged conflict theory to examine the factors responsible for farmers-herders conflict in Benue State. The study employed Taro Yamane sampling technique on administered five-Likert scale questionnaire. Findings from study on the factors responsible for farmers-herders conflict reveals that encroachment on farm lands and crop destruction by cattle stands at (71.1%), Unemployment and poverty (62.9%),Communication barrier/Mutual distrust (64.2%), inadequate grazing reserves/Blockage of grazing routes (68.4%,), Raping/Kidnapping of women (59.4%), Land ownership tussle/ Indigenization (51.6%), Cattle rustling/Theft (26.6%) and Contamination of river bodies by cattle (71.9%). The deduction therefore is that majority of the respondents emphatically agreed with all the factors mentioned above as the major causes of the conflict in Benue and Nigeria in general. However, the opinions of most respondents out rightly rejected cattle rustling as a major cause of the conflict in the study area. The study recommends that the establishment of modern functional cattle ranches will significantly address the issues of grazing routes blockage and encroachment on farm lands/crop destruction which will drastically reduce or completely eliminate farmers-herders conflict in Nigeria. This study also recommends the urgent implementation of the National Young Farmers Scheme’ aimed engaging modern methods of farming by engaging 1,000 farmers from each of the 774 Local Government. That Federal government should evolve genuine and workable national strategies of disarming the armed killer herdsmen parading farming communities in Benue with sophisticated weapons of Ak47 to commit carnage, and rape against farming communities.

An urgent call-to-action to protect the nonhuman primates and Indigenous Peoples of the Brazilian Amazon.

Primates are facing an impending extinction crisis. Here, we examine the set of conservation challenges faced by the 100 primate species that inhabit the Brazilian Amazon, the largest remaining area of primary tropical rainforest in the world. The vast majority (86%) of Brazil's Amazonian primate species have declining populations. Primate population decline in Amazonia has been driven principally by deforestation related to the production of forest-risk commodities including soy and cattle ranching, the illegal logging and setting of fires, dam building, road and rail construction, hunting, mining, and the confiscation and conversion of Indigenous Peoples' traditional lands. In a spatial analysis of the Brazilian Amazon, we found that 75% of Indigenous Peoples' lands (IPLs) remained forested compared with 64% of Conservation Units (CUs) and 56% of other lands (OLs). In addition, primate species richness was significantly higher on IPLs than on CUs and OLs. Thus, safeguarding Indigenous Peoples' land rights, systems of knowledge, and human rights is one of the most effective ways to protect Amazonian primates and the conservation value of the ecosystems they inhabit. Intense public and political pressure is required and a global call-to-action is needed to encourage all Amazonian countries, especially Brazil, as well as citizens of consumer nations, to actively commit to changing business as usual, living more sustainably, and doing all they can to protect the Amazon. We end with a set of actions one can take to promote primate conservation in the Brazilian Amazon.

HERPETOFAUNA OF THE CHASCHOC LAGOON WETLANDS, TABASCO, MEXICO

This study apports new information on the diversity of amphibians and reptiles in a freshwater wetland of Tabasco. From January to December 2014, monthly samplings were conducted in the Chaschoc lagoon wetlands to establish a checklist of amphibians and reptiles for this site and to detect potential threats to their conservation. Diurnal and nocturnal surveys were conducted in terrestrial habitats, while surveys were conducted in water bodies for turtles and crocodiles. Fifty-five species were detected (12 amphibians, and 43 reptiles), representing 32.4% of the species recorded for Tabasco. Species accumulation models resulted in percentages of inventory completeness above 92 %. Most of the species do not appear in IUCN Red List of threatened species, appendices of CITES, or the list of threatened species of the Official Mexican Norm NOM-59-SEMARNAT-2010. Main threats detected for the herpetofauna were cattle ranching, illegal hunting and collecting, destruction, fragmentation and pollution of the habitat, and intentional fires. We also detected three non-native invasive species of reptiles.