Anurofauna em riachos de fragmentos florestais da Chapada das Perdizes, Serra de Carrancas, Sul de Minas Gerais

Abstract

Amphibian plays an important role to the ecosystems functions, being useful to insect population control and ecological process of energy flux. Nowadays, a total of 6,184 species of amphibian are described in the world. Brazil has the highest diversity of amphibians (825 species) where 797 are in the Order Anura. Around 200 species are known to Minas Gerais State. In reason to the high biological richness and levels of threats, the Cerrado and Mata Atlântica are world-known priorized ecosystems for biodiversity conservation concerns. Few numbers of researches about global declining of amphibian population were conduced in Brazil. Researches have being conduced in many countries, improving the ecological knowledge of the species and their habitats, allowing the development of monitoring and conservation programs for individual species and for their natural habitats. The present work has as main purpose survey the anurans in streams inside forest fragments in "Chapada das Perdizes" in Serra de Carrancas, beyond to evaluate the richness and spatial distribution of species. The collects were fulfilled between April and December of 2007. The methodology was active sampling, verifying all streams equally in range and period of time. They were recorded 11 species distributed in seven families. The species showed evident spatial segregation in relation to environments evaluated. This study contributed to enlargement the geographic distribution limits of some species, as Crossodactylus gaudichaudii, Aplastodiscus leucopygius, Dendropsophus sanborni, Hypsiboas stenocephalus and Pseudoludicola mineira. The species richness was representative, considering that just one type of environment was sampled for a short time period of study. The region shows a fauna typical of transition zones, with elements both from Cerrado e Mata Atlântica.