Composição e diversidade de serpentes em um mosaico de habitats no município de Urbano Santos, Maranhão

• Autor(a) principal: LIMA, Jucivaldo Dias
• Data de Publicação: 2003
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UFPA
• Texto Completo: http://repositorio.ufpa.br/jspui/handle/2011/4185
• topic: CNPQ::CIENCIAS BIOLOGICAS::ZOOLOGIA; CNPQ::CIENCIAS BIOLOGICAS::ECOLOGIA::ECOLOGIA DE ECOSSISTEMAS; Réptil; Cobra; Diversidade; Fazenda Santo Amaro - MA; Urbano Santos - MA; Maranhão - Estado

This study presents results of a year of field observations on the snake fauna sampled in a habitat mosaic ecompassing flooded and non-flooded forest types, eucalyptus plantations and open vegetation areas, at Urbano Santos, Maranhão State of Brasil. The area is covered by Savanna vegetation and the climate is tropical megathermical, with annual rainfail around 1800mm. The yaer of study (2001) was drier than average rainfall (1197.5mm). Sample were made from January to December 2001, during 24 field trips, lasting for days each 15 day period. Sampling effort was 768h/oberver including diurnal and nocturnal visual search. Each habitat was sampled by randorn linear transect chosen by chance. During the study, 114 snakes belonging to six families, 27 genera and 32 species were captured. For each species data smout-vet length, ativity period, juvenile presence, spatial distribution and microhabitat are presented. Among the 32 species registred, six were new record for Maranhão State (Apostolepis cearensis, Helicops leopardinus, Oxyrhopus trigeminus, Psomophis joberti, Waglerophis merremíí e Micrurus ibiboboca). Among the species registered, 40.1% were arboreal, 25.0% were subterraneous, 21.9 % terrestrial and 12.5% aquatic, even though some species occupied more than one microhabitat. Most species occurred in flooded and non-flooded forests, and open vegetation areas. In general, similarity between habitats was low; only the non-flooded forest, and open vegetations areas shared more than 60% of species. Estimates of species richness according to various estimators, indicated that the number of species observed was lower than expected, varying between 38 (bootstrap) and 58 (Chao 2). Compementarity between the habitat showed more similarity between flooded and non-flooded forest to open vegetation area. The sanke fauna in the area appears to be most similar to that recorded from the Ceará State mountaing range. The results represent the first contribution to the knowledge of the snake diversity in the region and offer first data for future projects on monitoring snake fauna and habitat status in the area.