Snake richness in urban forest fragments from Niterói and surroundings, state of Rio de Janeiro, southeastern Brazil

Abstract

BackgroundThe Atlantic Forest is a hotspot for biodiversity, an area which houses high species richness and endemism, but with high level of threat. With reference to the herpetofauna, until recently there has been no detailed information regarding diversity of snakes recorded in the Atlantic Forest, the number of endemic species and their distribution ranges. While these basic data were missing, large areas of original forest have continued to be lost to increased urbanization and human population, representing a severe threat to the biodiversity.New informationWe recorded 28 snake species in our study area. Dipsadidae was the richest family with 14 species, followed by Colubridae (eight species), Boidae (two species), Viperidae (two species), and Anomalepididae, Elapidae and Typhlopidae (one species each). Most species were forest inhabitants (61%), of which 13 are endemic to the Atlantic Forest. There were no clearly defined species clusters regarding species composition. None of the species recorded in Niterói are listed as threatened in the Brazilian Redlist. However, most of them are strongly associated with forested areas and, perhaps, are not adapted to live in small fragments. Thus, more initiatives should be implemented to evaluate the true conservation status of these species in order to better protect them.

Concrete survivors: the herpetofauna of an urban green area over 100 years of increasing urbanization

“…However, the IBu area was not assessed in this inventory and our study provides two new records for the city: the lizard Notomabuya frenata and the amphisbaenid Amphisbaenia mertensii. The species richness and composition we found seem proportionally similar with other urban areas within Atlantic Forest (e.g., Citeli et al 2016, de Oliveira et al 2016, França and França 2019, Cavalheri et al 2021.…”

“…Amphibians and reptiles are well-sampled groups in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, and the urban herpetofauna is becoming a target research subject over the years (e.g., Citeli et al 2016, Lourenço-de-Moraes et al 2018, Almeida-Correa et al 2020, Ganci et al 2021. Urban environments are typically characterized by lower biodiversity when compared to natural environments (Marzluff 2001; Chace and Walsh 2006).…”

Non-Avian Reptiles of the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: status of knowledge and commented list

“…The first comprehensive inventory on the reptile species of RJ state was published about 15 years ago (Rocha et al, 2004), in which 127 species of reptiles were known to occur in the state (one crocodilian, seven amphisbaenians, nine chelonians, 28 lizards and 82 snakes). A number of subsequent studies have increased the knowledge on reptile composition of RJ by inventorying areas in the state (e.g., Citeli et al, 2016;Rocha et al, 2018;Martins et al, 2019) extending the geographic distribution of some species (e.g., Silveira, 2008;Goyannes-Araújo et al, 2009;Hamdan et al, 2015), describing new taxa (e.g., Fernandes et al, 2010;Prates et al, 2020), and providing new records of non-indigenous species (e.g., Siciliano et al, 2014;Oliveira et al, 2018). The recent advances, along with a number of additional taxonomic adjustments through the years (e.g., Sturaro et al, 2018;Hoogmoed et al, 2019), made the species list of RJ become outdated.…”