A “hotspot” within a hotspot: the reptiles of the Estação Ecológica and Área de Proteção Ambiental de Murici, Atlantic Forest of northeastern Brazil

Abstract

Currently the Atlantic Forest hotspot has less than 11% of its original coverage. However approximately 300 species of reptiles are known to inhabit this ecoregion, of which 34% are endemic. The creation of protected areas represents a strategy for preserving ecosystems and managing land use, and for attaining the proper management of these protected areas, information on local biodiversity is essential. Herein we provide the first list of reptile species for the Estação Ecológica and Área de Proteção Ambiental de Murici, two overlapping protected areas located in the state of Alagoas, one of the most important sets of forest remnants for the conservation of the Atlantic Forest in the northeast of Brazil. The species list was constructed based on expeditions and occasional encounters in the area between 1994 and 2022. A total of 89 reptile species were obtained during the 28 years of collection, being two species of Crocodylia, three species of Testudines and 84 species of Squamata. This richness is by far one of the greatest ever documented for the Atlantic Forest. Additionally, two species registered in the area are considered threatened according to the national list (Amerotyphlops paucisquamus and Bothrops muriciensis) and six are defined as data deficient for the assessment of their conservation status. Three species are recorded for the first time in the Atlantic Forest north of the São Francisco River: Dipsas indica, Trilepida salgueiroi and Cercophis auratus. We claim that the species list provided here will serve as a starting point for further studies in this rich reptile “hotspot” within the Atlantic Forest.

A refuge between houses and buildings: reptiles in a peri-urban Atlantic Forest fragment in northeastern Brazil

“…Based on MHN-UFAL material collected in the state of Alagoas, some of the species recorded in the APACFV are rarely documented in the state and are known from a few individuals and a few locations. Only three individuals of the lizard Stenolepis ridleyi are recorded from Alagoas: one from Catolé forest in the APACFV, one from the Reserva Biológica de Pedra Talhada in the Municipality of Quebrangulo (Roberto et al 2015) and one from the Área de Proteção Ambiental and Estação Ecológica de Murici in the Municipality of Murici (Dubeux et al 2022). For the wide-ranging snake Phimophis guerini, the only individual known from Alagoas came from the Cerrado enclave of the APACFV (Lisboa et al 2011).…”

“…When comparing the reptile assemblage found in the APACFV to those recorded in nearby protected areas in the northern Atlantic Forest (See Table 2 for the richness recorded for each reptile group in each protected area), the number of recorded species is exceeded only by three reserves, a the Área de Proteção Ambiental and Estação Ecológica de Murici in the state of Alagoas with 89 species recorded (Dubeux et al 2022), and the Reserva Biológica de Pedra Talhada in the states of Alagoas and Pernambuco (Roberto et al 2015), and Reserva Biológica Guaribas in the state of Paraíba (Mesquita et al 2018), both with 72 species recorded. The reptile species richness found in the APACFV was over twice that of two other conservation units in the northern Atlantic Forest, although those two reserves have much smaller areas (Table 2).…”

“…Due to the broad climatic, topographic and vegetational variation of the Atlantic Forest (Ribeiro et al 2009), species assemblages can vary dramatically over short distances (Costa and Bérnils 2018, Nogueira et al 2019, Prates et al 2020. Furthermore, despite the comparatively large number of reptile surveys already available for the Atlantic Forest (e. g. Costa and Bérnils 2018, Nogueira et al 2019, Prates et al 2020, Filho et al 2020, Dubeux et al 2022; See Discussion section for other examples), large geographic gaps still exist. The high probability of discovering new species (Moura and Jetz 2021), coupled with new distribution records published each year for this hotspot, reinforce the need for additional reptile inventories in the Atlantic Forest (Rodrigues 2005, Andrade et al 2019, Lourenço-de-Morais 2019, Rosario et al 2019, Prates et al 2020.…”

“…published reptile lists exist for this region (Santana et al 2008, Roberto et al 2015, Roberto et al 2017, Mesquita et al 2018, Melo et al 2018, Barbosa et al 2019, Filho et al 2020, Lima et al 2021, Oliveira et al 2021, Dubeux et al 2022. Even so, approximately 180 species of reptiles are currently reported from the northern Atlantic Forest, representing about 60% of the total reptile diversity documented in this hotspot (Costa and Bérnils 2018).…”

“…For the Atlantic Forest remnants in the state of Alagoas, Brazil, an outdated list of reptile species by ecoregions (Silva et al 2006), and long-term surveys in the Reserva Biológica de Pedra Talhada (Roberto et al 2015) and Área de Proteção Ambiental and Estação Ecológica de Murici (Dubeux et al 2022), are the only available reptile lists. Only the last one was published in a scientific journal, the other studies were published in books written in Portuguese, and only the former is easily available for consultation.…”