Abstract
Context
Declining in biodiversity in the Anthropocene is mostly a result of habitat loss due to changes in the landscape.
Objectives
Here, we address how landscape composition and configuration affect anuran diversity in agricultural landscapes in the Brazilian Cerrado ecoregion.
Methods
We sampled 29 breeding sites during the rainy season using auditory census and visual encounters to record anuran species richness, and specialist, generalist and dominant species richness. For each sampling site, we estimated eight landscape metrics at five spatial scales.
Results
We recorded 36 species from seven anuran families, 17 habitat specialist and 19 habitat generalists. We found that aquatic habitat cover (%) and number of aquatic patches played a positive effect on both total anuran richness and richness of dominant species. However, landscape compositional heterogeneity and aquatic habitat isolation negatively influenced community rarity, and abundance of habitat specialist species. In addition, more diverse anuran communities were found in areas where the amount and number of aquatic habitat patches were greater.
Conclusions
Our results emphasize the importance of maintaining high amounts of waterbodies and high aquatic habitat connectivity across the landscapes. Moreover, rare species and habitat specialist species are sensitive to landscape composition and configuration, respectively. Therefore, water body amount and connectivity must be considered in conservation plans to mitigate anuran community loss in agricultural landscapes.
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Data availability
Additional data are provided as supporting information in the online version of this article.
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Acknowledgements
PS received a PhD scholarship from CAPES (nº 88882.347104/2019-01) and JSS received a CAPES postdoctoral fellowship and a postdoctoral grant from the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP, project no 2019/09713-6 and 2022/00166-5) to which we gratefully acknowledge. RGC was supported by a Visiting Research fellowship from São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP, process no. 2022/10760-1). RGC, NMM and MCR have continuously been supported by productivity grants from CNPq which we gratefully acknowledge. Field work was performed under the license no. 21643-2. MCR thanks to FAPESP (processes #2013/50421-2; #2020/01779-5; #2021/08534-0; #2021/10195-0; #2021/10639-5; #2022/10760-1) and National Council for Scientific and Technological Development - CNPq (processes #442147/2020-1; #440145/2022-8; #402765/2021-4; #313016/2021-6; #440145/2022-8) for their financial support.
Funding
This work was supported by grants to the research network PELD COFA supported by MCT/CNPq/CAPES/ (project no 441278/2016-7), FAPEG (project no. 201710267000331 and 202010267000404), and CAPES/PROCAD (project n° 88881.068425/2014-01).
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RGC, JSS, FM and MCR conceived the work; PS, NMM, RGC, MCR JSS and FM designed field work methodology; PS, NMM collected the data; RGC funded the work; PS, ELL, and JSS analyzed the data; PS, SI, RGC and JSS wrote the manuscript. NMM, FM and MCR assisted with text revision. All authors contributed critically to the drafts and gave final approval for publication.
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Silveira, P., Iop, S., dos Santos, J.S. et al. Amount and isolation of aquatic habitat drive anuran diversity in agricultural landscapes in the Brazilian Cerrado. Landsc Ecol 38, 2261–2275 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-023-01693-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-023-01693-z