Species Diversity, Distribution, and Conservation Status in a Mesoamerican Region

Abstract

The Uxpanapa-Chimalapas region, with one of the most extensive and best preserved tropical forest areas in Mexico, is undergoing major anthropogenic changes, and only some portions of the territory are under the protection of local communities. Although the biodiversity of the region is known to be high, no study has yet analyzed the diversity of amphibian species in the region or contributed to valuing the region in a context of amphibian conservation. Based on a review of databases and the existing scientific literature, as well as our own fieldwork, in this study, we analyze the amphibian species richness, species composition, their spatial distribution, and their conservation status in the Uxpanapa-Chimalapas region. Additionally, we compare this information with the available data for seven other tropical regions in central-northern Mesoamerica. The amphibian fauna recorded at the study region comprises 51 species, which makes it the richest tropical region in amphibian species in central-northern Mesoamerica and Mexico. Among the regions compared, this one stands out as the one with the most distinctive composition of amphibian species, sharing on average only 35% of its species with the other regions. However, it is also the region with the highest number of threatened species since one third of its species are in higher extinction risk categories. These characteristics turn the Uxpanapa-Chimalapas into a high-priority region for both Mexico and Mesoamerica, and a regional conservation plan is necessary for the immediate protection of areas where the forest is being replaced and to promote or to support community protected areas.

Known and estimated distribution in Mexico of Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, a pathogenic fungus of amphibians

“…Sites where cloud forest predominates had the highest number of records; however, this could indicate that sampling effort was greater in these sites, rather than indicating that Bd has a greater affinity for this type of vegetation. Based on our results, Bd has not been greatly studied in the amphibians of Mexico's tropical forests even though these ecosystems have more amphibian species than, for example, the number recorded in northern Central America (Aguilar‐López, Pineda, Luría‐Manzano & Canseco‐Márquez, ). Mexico's forests also offer suitable conditions for its presence as observed in the tropical forests of South America (de Carnaval, Puschendorf, Peixoto, Verdade & Rodrigues, ; Valencia‐Aguilar et al., ).…”

Short Communication: The herpetofauna around human settlements in Lubuklinggau City, South Sumatra, Indonesia: Composition and diversity

“…The data were analyzed to determine the ecological indices, i.e., relative abundance, the Shannon-Wiener diversity index, Pielou evenness index, Jaccard similarity index, and Simpson dominance index (Aguilar-López et al 2016;Arista et al 2017;Muslim 2017;Cruz et al 2019). Analysis and calculations were performed with Microsoft Excel 2007 and MVSP 3.22.…”

Influence of current climate, historical climate stability and topography on species richness and endemism in Mesoamerican geophyte plants

“…Furthermore, a number of plant lineages are endemic to Mexico and endemism hotspots for these lineages have been identified as areas of dry climate with xeric vegetation comprising several monocot groups with geophyte life forms ( Sosa & De-Nova, 2012 ; Gándara, Specht & Sosa, 2014 ). On the contrary, endemic Mexican avifauna is centered in more humid habitats in the Sierra Madre Occidental and in the Sierra Madre del Sur ( Villalobos et al, 2013 ), endemism in amphibians in the tropical rainforests of southern Mexico ( Aguilar-López et al, 2016 ), and in small endemic mammals, habitats characterized by climatic and topographic variability in northern Baja California and in the mountains of central and southern Mexico ( Arita et al, 1997 ).…”