Effects of pine invasion on anurans assemblage in southern Brazil coastal ponds

Abstract

The destruction of wetlands due to afforestation areas is a common activity in temperate and subtropical regions in Southern America. The expansion of pine in the Coastal Plain of Southern Brazil is out of control and its impacts on aquatic biodiversity are little known. We tested the following hypotheses: the pine occurrence diminishes the anuran richness and abundance in ponds and it changes the anuran composition; the beta-diversity between pine and native grassland matrix ponds (natural ponds) is determined mainly by nestedness. Sampling was carried out from 2007 to 2009 in five ponds in pine invasion matrix and five ponds in native grassland matrix. The natural ponds showed a greater richness of tadpoles (10 species) than pine ponds (5 species). The mean richness of adults was higher in natural ponds than pine ponds throughout the entire study. The species composition was different between natural and pine ponds, for both adults and tadpoles. Comparing natural ponds with each other and the pine ponds with each other, our results showed that neither nestedness nor turnover was determinant for beta-diversity. However, when natural ponds were compared with pine ones, we found that the contribution of nestedness was higher for the anurans beta-diversity than turnover. Increases in the nestedness mechanism indicated that the pine occurrence results in species loss in Southern Brazil ponds. Since 90% of its wetland has been already affected, the removal of Pinus in the conservation areas in southern Brazil is important to minimize their impacts on aquatic biodiversity.

Abundance, Sex-Ratio, Length–Weight Relation, and Condition Factor of Non-Annual Killifish <I>Atlantirivulus Riograndensis</I> (Actinopterygii: Cyprinodontiformes: Rivulidae) in Lagoa Do Peixe National Park, a Ramsar Site of Southern Brazil

“…In southern Brazil, 90% of the wetland systems have already been lost mainly due to agriculture, and the remaining ones are still at high risk due to the expansion of rice fields and exotic Eucalyptus and pine plantation . Studies conducted in wetlands of LPNP have shown that pine plantation changed the hydroperiod of wetlands causing a negative effect on macrophytes (Rolon et al 2011), macroinvertebrates (Stenert et al 2012), amphibians (Machado et al 2012), and probably on rivulid populations.…”

Estrutura e organização espacial de duas comunidades de anuros do bioma Pampa

“…Os estudos envolvendo ecologia de comunidades de anuros existentes no Bioma Pampa, historicamente, estão concentrados na região da Planície Costeira (e.g., colomBo et al, 2008;maltcHik et al, 2008;moreira et al, 2008;macHado & maltcHik, 2009;macHado et al, 2012;oliveira et al, 2013), enquanto as fisionomias campestres interioranas permaneceram pouco exploradas exceto pelos estudos de santos et al (2008) na Depressão Central, BotH et al (2011) na Serra do Sudeste e di- Bernardo et al (2002) na região da Campanha. Apesar do crescente número de estudos, o conhecimento acerca dos padrões de composição, diversidade e distribuição espacial dos anuros desta região ainda são escassos.…”

Ecologia e história natural de Hypsiboas curupi (Anura, Hylidae): um anfíbio endêmico do sul da Mata Atlântica

“…The population in this study is one of the few currently known in Brazil (see Iop et al, 2009;Lucas and Marocco, 2011;Lucas and Garcia, 2011;Lipinski et al, 2012;Bastiani and Lucas, 2013). Fragmentation and isolation of the interior Atlantic Forest, expansion of hydroelectric projects in the region, and land and soil conversion for agricultural (Câmara, 2003;Bonai et al, 2009;Ternus et al, 2011) and silvicultural projects (Machado et al, 2012) may promote isolation of H. curupi populations. Such isolation increases the risk of extinction from inbreeding, genetic and demographic stochasticity, and vulnerability to diseases such as chytridiomycosis (Toledo et al, 2006).…”