Diversity and seasonal dynamic of a lizard assemblage in a Neotropical semiarid habitat

ABSTRACT

We assessed the lizard assemblage from a priority conservation Caatinga area from northeastern Brazil, through a pluriannual ecological approach, to expand the understanding on biodiversity patterns of Neotropical semiarid habitats. The studied area presented one of the richest lizard faunas among Caatinga sites, being composed primarily by species typical from open landscapes. The local species composition was more similar to assemblages from adjacent Caatinga ecoregions than to those from other areas within the same ecoregion. The inventoried lizard assemblage consisted of a few common species and a majority of low abundance ones, and its overall richness and abundance did not differ between rainy and dry months. Our findings demonstrated that the composition of lizard assemblages did not match with the current proposed Caatinga ecoregions, and revealed that the studied assemblage followed a lognormal species-abundance distribution, showing no significant seasonal fluctuation in richness and abundance.

KEYWORDS:

• Community ecology
• seasonally dry tropical forest
• Squamata

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Miguel T. U. Rodrigues for providing updated information on the diversity of lizards from Caatinga. We thank the administrative staff of the Fazenda Experimental do Vale do Curu for the logistical support and the Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade for the collection permit 10893-1, reg. 472138. We also thank NUROF-UFC colleagues for fieldwork assistance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

DCP is currently funded by a Doctor’s degree scholarship from Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), Brazil, and DMBN has a research productivity scholarship of Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), Brazil.