Diversity of teiid lizards from Gran Chaco and Western Cerrado (Squamata: Teiidae)

Seasonal changes in taxonomic and functional diversity of lizard communities in southern Brazilian Pantanal

Seasonal changes play a key ecological role, structuring biotic processes and communities. Yet we generally lack an understanding of how seasonal flood regimes affect communities in floodplains. Herein, we investigated the effects of seasonal changes in taxonomic and functional diversity of lizard communities in southern Pantanal ecoregion. Lizards were sampled in seven sites encompassing seasonally flooded grasslands and dense arboreal savannas, across rainy and dry seasons (2005-2006). Functional diversity metrics were based on three morphological traits and included intraspecific variability. We collected a total of 810 lizards from 13 species. Species richness did not differ across seasons or months. Lizard abundance varied among sampling months, but did not differ between rainy and dry season. Low values of abundance were recorded at drawdown period. Community composition did not vary between seasons. Functional diversity metrics exhibited random distributions, and both functional richness and evenness were not influenced by seasons. Although communities seem to be resilient to seasonal variations, our findings highlighted that transition from rainy to dry season may represent an important constraint on lizard abundance. Including traits related to food acquisition and predator avoidance could provide new insights into the effects of seasonal floods on floodplains' lizard communities.

Amphibians and reptiles of Parque Nacional da Serra das Lontras: an important center of endemism within the Atlantic Forest in southern Bahia, Brazil

Information gaps about species distribution hamper the evaluation of conservation status and decisions on biodiversity conservation, affecting to a greater extent, areas with high species richness and endemism. In this context, biological inventories are an important tool to fill these gaps by providing data on the composition, richness, and abundance of species in each locality. The Parque Nacional da Serra das Lontras (PNSL) protects various mountain range just up 1000 m. in altitude, and, together with other conservation units, forms an ecological corridor in the southern part of the state of Bahia, within the Atlantic Forest hotspot. We conducted systematic samplings on transects, and opportunistic records in ponds and streams, in order to record amphibian and reptile species in the PNSL. We complement the sampling with the information available in the literature and in scientific collections. A total of 100 species (49 amphibians and 51 reptiles) was recorded, 53 of them endemic to the Atlantic Forest, 13 to the state of Bahia, and two known only from the PNSL. Hylidae was the most diverse family of amphibians (22 spp.) and Colubridae of reptiles (33 spp.). New information on the distribution and natural history of these species is provided, many of which have not yet been assessed by the IUCN while others have already been categorized as at risk of extinction at the regional level. Results confirm the high species richness and rates of endemism in southern Bahia and highlight the importance of protecting high altitude areas for the preservation of evolutionary and ecological processes within the Atlantic Forest.

Disentangling the role of heat sources on microhabitat selection of two Neotropical lizard species

Our aim was to disentangle the effects of different heat sources and the non-thermal properties of the substrate in the microhabitat choices of two lizard species living in savanna habitats of central-western Brazil: the teiidAmeivulaaff.ocellifera(N = 43) and the tropiduridTropidurus oreadicus(N = 23). To this end, a mixed structural resource selection function (mixed-SRSF) approach was used, modelling the probability of finding a lizard on a certain microhabitat based on environmental variables of used and simultaneously available places. First, we controlled for the effects of solar radiation, convection and the physical thermal properties of the substrate on substrate temperature. Then we assessed the effects of solar radiation, convection, conduction and the non-thermal properties of the substrate in the probability of use of a certain microhabitat. Results confirmed that substrate temperature was mediated by: air convection > solar radiation > physical thermal properties of the substrates. Moreover, the mixed-SRSF revealed that direct solar radiation and the non-thermal properties of the substrates were the only drivers of microhabitat selection for both species, with approximately the same strength. Our novel approach allowed splitting of the effect of different mechanisms in the microhabitat selection of lizards, which makes it a powerful tool for assessing the conformation of the interactions between different environmental variables mediating animal behaviour.