Herpetofauna do Parque Nacional da Serra da Canastra, Minas Gerais, Brasil

• Autor(a) principal: Barros, Ana Bárbara
• Data de Publicação: 2011
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: LOCUS Repositório Institucional da UFV
• Texto Completo: http://locus.ufv.br/handle/123456789/2250
• topic: Anfíbios; Répteis; Cerrado; Serra da Canastra; Amphibians; Reptiles; Cerrado; Serra da Canastra; CNPQ::CIENCIAS BIOLOGICAS::ZOOLOGIA::ZOOLOGIA APLICADA

Conservation efforts at local scales, such as defining key biodiversity areas, are still currently hampered by the scarcity of good data on the distribution and diversity of organisms at finer scales to determine priority sites for conservation within large regions or ecosystems. Background information on taxonomy and natural history are crucial in regions that combine high anthropogenic pressure and high biological importance, as the preserved regions in the Cerrado domain. On a global scale, not at the scale of regions differentiated amongst continents, it is believed that the Cerrado is composed by a combination of biomes. Open areas around the globe are relatively poorly studied and valued in terms of biodiversity. For the herpetofauna, it is known that 115 amphibian species inhabit the Cerrado region, of which 32 (28%) are endemic. Among the reptiles from the Cerrado, 99 species are recorded, with 38% being endemic. The National Park of Serra da Canastra (NPSC) is located in the Southwest of the Minas Gerais state, Brazil. The knowledge about the herpetofauna of this region is scarce and occasional. The aim of this study is to contribute to the knowledge of the Cerrado herpetofauna (on a regional scale) through a list of species that occur in the NPSC, and discuss the local distribution of species and habitat use. This study also aims to compare the species composition at NPSC with other locations in the Cerrado region. Finally, it was aimed to detect any species with distribution restricted to the NPSC region, highlighting the uniqueness of the regional fauna of Serra da Canastra. Herpetofauna sampling campaigns were conducted through 18 months, five days per month, applying pitfall traps, active search, time-limited visual search and collection by collaborators. We also consulted the literature and herpetological collections from PNSC. After the sampling and compilation of data we obtained a list of 95 species of herpetofauna with 38 amphibians and 57 reptiles. The list of species presented in this study increases the knowledge on the herpetofauna at NPSC, providing new data particularly for the families Centrolenidae, Caeciliidae, Chelidae, Anguidae and Dipsadidae. We consider the conservation of interfluvial open areas, wet grassland and gallery forests critical for the maintenance and reproduction of species restricted to these environments, particularly in the case of amphibians that demonstrate more clearly the dependence of seasonal weather events. The yet undescribed species found in PNSC (Vitreorana sp., Bokermannohyla cf. circumdata, Hypsiboas aff. Cipoensis, Crossodactylus cf. trachystomus, Odontophrynus cf. carvalhoi, Proceratophrys aff. moratoi, Ophiodes sp. 1, Ophiodes sp. 2, and Stenocercus aff. tricristatus) should be better taxonomically studied, thereby affering a better understanding on the historical isolation an extinction risk of these populations.The Serra da Canastra represents a key element in the conservation of the Cerrado. Although much of its herpetofauna diversity is still poorly studied, it includes a wide range of probably new and endemic species. With this research, our goal is to gather data as possible subsidies for conservation planning based on better data on local and regional biogeographic patterns.