A Comparison of Amphibian and Reptile Diversity Between Disturbed and Undisturbed Environments of Salvatierra, Guanajuato, Mexico

Abstract

Amphibians and reptiles are two groups of vertebrates that are sensitive to changes in their environment. These changes are mostly caused by human activities, which affect the abundance, composition, and distribution of these vertebrates. In this study, we compare the richness and taxonomic diversity of herpetofauna between undisturbed environments (tropical deciduous forest ¼ TDF) and disturbed environments (corn fields ¼ CF) near the towns of Urireo (URI) and San Nicolas de los Agustinos (SNA) in Salvatierra, Guanajuato. We recorded a total of 19 species in the two locations (4 amphibian and 15 reptile species). At the URI locality, 12 species were recorded in CF and 10 in TDF. At the SNA locality, eight species were recorded in CF and seven species in TDF. In addition, we found that overall taxonomic distinctness was greater at URI than SNA across both types of vegetation, with the highest diversity found in TDF of URI. Seven of the 19 species recorded are current allocated to some protection category of NOM-059-SEMARNAT-2010: Lithobates neovolcanicus, Kinosternon integrum, Sceloporus grammicus, Lampropeltis polyzona, Masticophis mentovarius, Salvadora bairdi, and Thamnophis melanogaster differing from other mechanisms such as the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Environmental Vulnerability Score. Our results suggest that carrying out long-term studies that include diversity and taxonomic distinctness in environments with different levels of disturbance, in addition to including characteristics of natural history, might enhance the development of more efficient conservation strategies for these vertebrates.

The use of taxonomic relationships among species in applied ecological research: Baseline, steps forward and future challenges

“…2011), amphibians and reptiles (Leyte‐Manrique et al . 2019) in terrestrial systems, and mostly fish in aquatic systems (Tolimieri & Anderson 2010; Anderson et al . 2013; Smith et al .…”

Diversidad herpetofaunística de sitios restaurados y perturbados en el delta del río Colorado, Baja California, México

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Reptiles in the Pontianak and Kubu Raya Residental Area, West Kalimantan, Indonesia

“…In the last two decades, inhabitants and expansion of the residential area in West Kalimantan increase rapidly (Population and Civil Registration Office of West Kalimantan Government 2020). The expansion impacts the narrowing of the natural habitat for the reptiles (Reyes-Puig et al 2017;Leyte-Manrique et al 2019;Samitra and Rozi 2020) and will continue to arise because several residential areas are built in the natural habitats of reptiles (Alves et al 2012;Janiawati et al 2016;Kusrini et al 2020).…”