The relationship between pond habitat depth and functional tadpole diversity in an agricultural landscape

Made available in DSpace on 2018-12-11T17:00:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2015-07-01 One of the most important goals of biodiversity studies is to identify which characteristics of local habitats act as filters that determine the diversity of functional traits along environmental gradients. In this study, we investigated the relationship between the environmental variables of ponds and the functional trait diversity distribution of anuran tadpoles in an agricultural area in southeastern Brazil. Our results show that the functional trait diversity of frog tadpoles has a bell-curve-shaped relationship with the depths of ponds inserted in a pasture matrix. Because we are witnessing increasing human pressure on land use, simple acts (e.g. maintaining reproductive habitats with medium depth) can be the first steps towards preserving the diversity of Neotropical frog tadpole traits in agricultural landscapes. Universidade Estadual Paulista – UNESP, Campus de São José do Rio Preto Departamento de Zoologia e Botânica Universidade Estadual Paulista – UNESP, Campus de São José do Rio Preto Departamento de Ciências Ambientais Universidade Federal de São Carlos, Campus Sorocaba Rodovia João Leme dos Santos Km 110 Universidade Estadual Paulista – UNESP, Campus de São José do Rio Preto Departamento de Zoologia e Botânica Universidade Estadual Paulista – UNESP, Campus de São José do Rio Preto