Diversidade taxonômica de répteis em uma paisagem em mosaico, na serra da Saudinha, Maceió, Alagoas

Abstract

The Atlantic Forest has extensive biodiversity and a high rate of endemism due to the diversity of topographies and phytophysiognomies. The northeastern portion of the Atlantic Forest is referred to as the Pernambuco Endemism Center (PEC) due to its high levels of endemism. This diversity and endemism are concentrated in small fragments due to a history of human interactions, transforming much of the original PEC area into agricultural land with few remaining patches within monoculture matrices of certain plant species, particularly Eucalyptus. Eucalyptus forestry has the potential to alter biodiversity, acting as a filter for species composition and abundance distribution. This study evaluated the taxonomic diversity of non-avian reptile fauna in Fazenda Riachão, Serra da Saudinha, Maceió, AL, and performed a similarity analysis among three habitats in this area: forest interior, forest edge, and Eucalyptus plantations. The diversity of the study area was also compared to other PEC localities. We tested the hypothesis that native areas would exhibit higher taxonomic diversity due to a greater presence of forest species. The richness of the reptile taxocenosis, including species previously recorded at this study location, was close to the estimate obtained by the first-order Jackknife index. The environments showed significant differences in species composition as structural heterogeneity increased. The edge had the highest diversity, likely because it is an area where forest and open-area species coexist. The forest had the highest occurrence of exclusive species, dominated by Coleodactylus meridionalis, a species common in high-humidity, low-sunlight environments. The Eucalyptus forestry environment had the lowest diversity values. These results highlight the importance of preserving the Atlantic Forest's original phytophysiognomy, showing that the monoculture environment established by Eucalyptus functioned as a filter, favoring only a few species. Compared to other PEC remnants, Serra da Saudinha exhibited lower richness, and its species composition was similar to that of ESEC and APA of Murici and REBIO Pedra Talhada, which clustered together in the similarity dendrogram, as did the remnants of APA do Catolé and REBIO Guaribas, indicating the influence of geographic characteristics on reptile taxocenosis composition in these fragments. However, in addition to having similar geographic characteristics, these areas also experience anthropogenic pressure due to their proximity to urban areas and ease of access.