Este estudio se realizó en el Cerro Guiengola, Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, con el objetivo de contribuir al conocimiento de la herpetofauna en dicha área. Se obtuvieron 602 registros visuales y se recolectaron 103 ejemplares de anfibios y reptiles durante 60 días de trabajo de campo. Se enlistan 40 especies, pertenecientes a 33 géneros y 18 familias. Se determinó la distribución de la herpetofauna en el Cerro Guiengola por microhábitat, tipo de vegetación y altitud. Usando el método de Jaccard se elaboraron dendrogramas de similitud por microhábitat y tipo de vegetación. Se reportan especies por tipode vegetación y rangos altitudinales diferentes a los citados en la literatura. De acuerdo con los valores obtenidos, los índices de diversidad de Simpson y Shannon-Wiener demuestran que el área de estudio es diversa. De las 40 especies que se registraron, 13 son endémicas de México y tres de Oaxaca. El 42.5% de la herpetofauna registrada se encuentra enlistada en la NOM-059-ECOL-2001 y el 47.5% en la Unión Internacional para la Conservación de la Naturaleza (IUCN).

Biodiversity is multidimensional and different mechanisms can influence different dimensions. The spatial distribution of these dimensions can help in conservation decisions through the location of complementary areas with high diversity. We analyzed congruence in spatial patterns of species richness and functional diversity of cricetid rodents in the state of Oaxaca, southern Mexico, at different scales, and environmental variables related. Potential distribution models were produced for 49 species of cricetids in Maxent and superimposed to obtain potential communities in cells of 25, 50,100, 200 and 400 km 2 . We estimated species richness (SR) and functional diversity (SES.FD) eliminating the species richness effect through null models. The patterns and spatial congruence of species richness and functional diversity are described. The relationships between the environmental variables (elevation, temperature, precipitation, net primary productivity and potential evapotranspiration) and the SR and SES.FD were explored using Generalized Linear Models (GLMs) and Generalized Additive Models (GAMs). The highest species richness was found in mountainous ecosystems while the highest functional diversity was in tropical forests, revealing a spatial incongruence among these components of biodiversity (r = -0.14, p = 0.42; Pearson correlation). The locations of the cells of low congruence varied according to spatial resolution. In univariate models, elevation was the variable that best explained species richness (R 2 = 0.77). No single variable explained the functional diversity; however, the models that included multiple environmental variables partially explained both the high and low functional diversity. The different patterns suggest that different historic, ecological and environmental processes could be responsible for the community structure of cricetid rodents in Oaxaca. These results indicate that one great challenge to be met to achieve more effective planning for biological conservation is to integrate knowledge regarding the spatial distribution of different dimensions of biodiversity.

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This note reports a historic record of the Central American Tapir, Tapirus bairdii, for the Coastal Plain of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Oaxaca, Mexico. The record was dated to the decade of 1950, and was found 40 km from the closest historic locality. The presence of this species suggests two hypotheses: that the observed specimens belong to a previously existing population in this region, or that these specimens come from the Los Chimalapas region.

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Understanding the ecological and historical causes and processes that shape biodiversity distribution patterns remains a challenging and fundamental task in biogeography, ecology, and evolution. To address this issue, taxonomic and phylogenetic β diversity can help us to assess the importance of ecological and historical factors that structure these biotic patterns. To make inferences about the processes underlying current spatial patterns in communities of Cricetidae across the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, their taxonomic and phylogenetic β diversity were assessed jointly. Our aims were: 1) to examine taxonomic and phylogenetic β diversity and their turnover and nestedness components among physiographic subprovinces; 2) to test for statistical significance of observed phylogenetic β diversity against the expected values of a null model; and 3) to evaluate if these metrics were correlated with geographical distance. We obtained the species composition for 12 subprovinces based on distribution models for 49 cricetid species present in Oaxaca, then carried out a maximum likelihood analysis to estimate their phylogenetic relationships. Our results show that the taxonomic and phylogenetic dissimilarities mainly were explained by the turnover component of species and lineages. In almost all pairwise comparisons, the null model approach revealed random patterns for phylogenetic β diversity values and its components. Mantel correlation models showed that the values of total taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity and their components are correlated with the geographical distances between subprovinces. Our results suggest that both taxonomic and phylogenetic β diversity are explained by the interplay between biogeographical history from southern Mexico, and the recent speciation processes in cricetid rodents. Given that speciation processes are allopatric for most cricetid taxa, the high values of spatial turnover can be explained by the small ranges of species, coupled with current abiotic conditions that act as filters, promoting specialization of species on particular conditions. Our results show the importance of the phylogenetic approach to unravel the multidimensional spatial patterns of biodiversity.