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Souza-Oliveira AF, Zuquim G, Martins LF, Bandeira LN, Diele-Viegas LM, Cavalcante VH, Baccaro F, Colli GR, Tuomisto H, Werneck FP. The role of environmental gradients and microclimates in structuring communities and functional groups of lizards in a rainforest-savanna transition area. PeerJ 2024; 12:e16986. [PMID: 38685936 PMCID: PMC11057429 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.16986] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/10/2023] [Accepted: 01/30/2024] [Indexed: 05/02/2024] Open
Abstract
Environmental heterogeneity poses a significant influence on the functional characteristics of species and communities at local scales. Environmental transition zones, such as at the savanna-forest borders, can act as regions of ecological tension when subjected to sharp variations in the microclimate. For ectothermic organisms, such as lizards, environmental temperatures directly influence physiological capabilities, and some species use different thermoregulation strategies that produce varied responses to local climatic conditions, which in turn affect species occurrence and community dynamics. In the context of global warming, these various strategies confer different types of vulnerability as well as risks of extinction. To assess the vulnerability of a species and understand the relationships between environmental variations, thermal tolerance of a species and community structure, lizard communities in forest-savanna transition areas of two national parks in the southwestern Amazon were sampled and their thermal functional traits were characterized. Then, we investigated how community structure and functional thermal variation were shaped by two environmental predictors (i.e., microclimates estimated locally and vegetation structure estimated from remote sensing). It was found that the community structure was more strongly predicted by the canopy surface reflectance values obtained via remote sensing than by microclimate variables. Environmental temperatures were not the most important factor affecting the occurrence of species, and the variations in ecothermal traits demonstrated a pattern within the taxonomic hierarchy at the family level. This pattern may indicate a tendency for evolutionary history to indirectly influence these functional features. Considering the estimates of the thermal tolerance range and warming tolerance, thermoconformer lizards are likely to be more vulnerable and at greater risk of extinction due to global warming than thermoregulators. The latter, more associated with open environments, seem to take advantage of their lower vulnerability and occur in both habitat types across the transition, potentially out-competing and further increasing the risk of extinction and vulnerability of forest-adapted thermoconformer lizards in these transitional areas.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alan F. Souza-Oliveira
- Coordenação de Biodiversidade, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisa da Amazonia, Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil
| | - Gabriela Zuquim
- Section for Ecoinformatics and Biodiversity, Department of Biology, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
- Department of Biology, University of Turku, Turku, Finland
| | - Lidia F. Martins
- Coordenação de Biodiversidade, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisa da Amazonia, Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil
| | - Lucas N. Bandeira
- Coordenação de Biodiversidade, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisa da Amazonia, Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil
| | | | | | - Fabricio Baccaro
- Departamento de Biologia, Universidade Federal do Amazonas, Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil
| | - Guarino Rinaldi Colli
- Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade de Brasília, Brasília, Distrito Federal, Brazil
| | - Hanna Tuomisto
- Department of Biology, University of Turku, Turku, Finland
| | - Fernanda P. Werneck
- Coordenação de Biodiversidade, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisa da Amazonia, Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil
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Ganança PHS, Santos AP, Kawashita‐Ribeiro RA, Vasconcelos Neto LB, Santos Júnior IA, Guedes DDS, Fraga R. Habitats determining local frog assemblages within aquatic macrophyte meadows in Amazonia, through species traits filtering. AUSTRAL ECOL 2021. [DOI: 10.1111/aec.13013] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Pedro Henrique Salomão Ganança
- Laboratório de Ecologia e Comportamento Animal Universidade Federal do Oeste do Pará rua Vera Paz, s/n, Salé Santarém PA68040‐255Brazil
- Programa de Pós‐Graduação em Biodiversidade Universidade Federal do Oeste do Pará Santarém PABrazil
| | - Alfredo P. Santos
- Laboratório de Ecologia e Comportamento Animal Universidade Federal do Oeste do Pará rua Vera Paz, s/n, Salé Santarém PA68040‐255Brazil
- Programa de Pós‐Graduação em Biodiversidade Universidade Federal do Oeste do Pará Santarém PABrazil
| | - Ricardo A. Kawashita‐Ribeiro
- Laboratório de Ecologia e Comportamento Animal Universidade Federal do Oeste do Pará rua Vera Paz, s/n, Salé Santarém PA68040‐255Brazil
- Departamento de Ciências Biológicas Instituto de Ciências Exatas e Experimentais Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso Rondonópolis MTBrazil
| | - Lourival Baía Vasconcelos Neto
- Laboratório de Ecologia e Comportamento Animal Universidade Federal do Oeste do Pará rua Vera Paz, s/n, Salé Santarém PA68040‐255Brazil
- Programa de Pós‐Graduação em Biodiversidade Universidade Federal do Oeste do Pará Santarém PABrazil
| | - Ivan Alves Santos Júnior
- Programa de Pós‐graduação em Biociências Universidade Federal do Oeste do Pará Santarém PABrazil
| | - Daniel de Sousa Guedes
- Curso de Bacharelado em Biologia Instituto de Ciências e Tecnologia das Águas Universidade Federal do Oeste do Pará Santarém PABrazil
| | - Rafael Fraga
- Laboratório de Ecologia e Comportamento Animal Universidade Federal do Oeste do Pará rua Vera Paz, s/n, Salé Santarém PA68040‐255Brazil
- Programa de Pós‐Graduação em Recursos Naturais da Amazônia Universidade Federal do Oeste do Pará Santarém PA Brazil
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de Fraga R, de Carvalho VT. Testing the Wallace’s riverine barrier hypothesis based on frog and Squamata reptile assemblages from a tributary of the lower Amazon River. STUDIES ON NEOTROPICAL FAUNA AND ENVIRONMENT 2021. [DOI: 10.1080/01650521.2020.1870838] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/22/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Rafael de Fraga
- Laboratório de Ecologia e Comportamento Animal, Universidade Federal do Oeste do Pará, Santarém, Brazil
| | - Vinícius Tadeu de Carvalho
- Programa de Pós-Graduação em Diversidade Biológica e Recursos Naturais, Universidade Regional do Cariri, Crato, Brazil
- Laboratório de Evolução e Genética Animal, Universidade Federal do Amazonas, Manaus, Brazil
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