As comunidades de anfíbios e lagartos dos remanescentes de restingas do estado do Espírito Santo: uma análise da ocorrência e distribuição das espécies

Abstract

Ecologically, communities are groups of populations living in the same space and time. The way the species that compose these communities and how they are distributed and structured, depends on many factors, including historical, biogeographical and evolutionary. In this study, we aimed to understand how communities of amphibians and lizards are structured and what environmental and degradation factors determine this structure. We sampled five restinga habitats (sandy coastal plains) in the state of Espírito Santo, using linear transects in different vegetation types (mesohabitats) in this ecosystems. We conducted sampling in the dry and in the rainy season in all restinga habitats, totaling 60 hours of sampling effort for amphibians and 75 hours for lizards. We recorded a total of 32 species of frogs together in the five restingas, which two of these being endemic species of this ecosystem: Scinax agilis and Melanophryniscus setiba. The restinga Paulo Cesar Vinha was the remnant with the highest frog species richness, while the Reserva Biologica de Comboios had the lowest richness. In terms of species composition, Praia das Neves and Paulo Cesar Vinha were the most similar, while Comboios was the farthest in the Cluster analysis. We recorded six reproductive modes for frog species in the five restinga habitats, which 75% were related to aquatic environments. The availability of nesting sites for the species of frogs was positively related to species richness in restingas. The individuals recorded used all mesohabitats of restingas, except the vegetation types of halofila-psamófila and a considerable percentage of individuals were found in the wetlands. In addition to our data about lizards community, we considered those available in Dias e Rocha (2014) and those found in Winck (2012). We recorded a total of 23 species of lizards in the restinga habitats sampled in the states of Rio de Janeiro, Espirito Santo and Bahia. We observed that the communities in the studied restingas have considerable differentiation between them. The beta diversity - β was high while the degree of nestedness was intermediate. We also recorded the presence of the exotic invader lizard Hemidactylus mabouia in natural environment in the remaining restingas studied in this thesis. We found 45 individuals in three of the five sampled restingas. We also recorded eggs of H. mabouia (2 of them hatched) in two of the five sites studied, indicating that the recruitment of individuals is taking place successfully. The presence of H. mabouia was related to restingas with higher frequency of environmental degradation. We consider that the data obtained in this Thesis, provides considerable importance of information for understanding the structure of amphibian and lizards communities in restingas ecosystems along the Brazilian coast.