Difficult times for amphibians: Effects of land-use change at the local and landscape scales in the Iberá Wetlands

SCHIVO, FACUNDO; GRIMSON, RAFAEL; AQUINO, DIEGO SEBASTIÁN; QUINTANA, RUBÉN D.

ACTA OECOLOGICA-INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY

GAUTHIER-VILLARS/EDITIONS ELSEVIER

Lugar: Paris; Año: 2023

1146-609X

Land-use changes and land management decisions have led to habitat loss, one of the most important factors in biodiversity decline. Particularly, amphibians are the vertebrate group with the highest number of threatened species at global level. In this work, amphibian communities inhabiting ponds are analysed in three landscapes, one protected and two productive (livestock and afforestation). In each landscape, the amphibian species were identified using two sampling methodologies. In addition, land-cover types and structural composition at landscape level and vegetation types at local level were characterised. The relationship among these environmental variables and the amphibian communities was analysed. In addition, presence/absence and abundance of each species were recorded. Twenty one amphibian species were identified; protected and afforestation landscapes were the richest, while livestock landscape showed the least richness and diversity values. The three landscapes showed differences between environmental variables in the two analysed levels that allowed their characterization. The protected landscape has the higher vegetation cover at local level, dominated by hydrophilic species and graminoides grasses, at landscape level, it showed the highest forest coverage. The livestock landscape was characterised by a high proportion of free water and both sparse grasslands and bare soil. The afforestation landscape showed a great variability of land -covers. Vegetation and water coverage at local level together with landscape land-use category were the most important environmental variables which explained the higher presence of species and their abundance. These results show how the different land uses modified the composition of amphibian communities in which livestock shows the most intense impacts on them. Key environmental variables associated with the greatest richness and diversity of amphibians were identified. These results constitute a basis for the generation of necessary tools for management development strategies designed to reconcile different productive activities with the conservation of native fauna and the protection of their habitats.