Cerrado assemblages of reptiles and amphibians along the drainage of Rio Tocantins and the impact of hydroelectric power plants on their conservation / Assembléias de répteis e anfíbios do Cerrado ao longo da bacia do rio Tocantins e o impacto do aproveitamento hidrelétrico da região na sua conservação

Dante Pavan

The Cerrado herpetofauna was studied along the basin of the Tocantins river using three distinct and complementary approaches. First, a fast sampling scheme, covering all the studied area, was conducted in 11 sites between the Central Plateau, in the state of Goiás, and the northern portion of the Tocantins depression, at the border of the states of Tocantins and Maranhão. Second, the central portion of the studied area, the UHE LEM, was intensively sampled, resulting in a complete list of species for this area and data about their distribution in the landscape in a way that allowed the identification of some of the impacts caused by the construction of the dam. Third, six sites were sampled in two months intervals during three years, providing accurate information about the effects of habitat, seasonality, and of the movement of the fauna in response to the filling of the lake on the anuran and lizard assemblages. The comparisons among Cerrado sites and sites in other adjacent Neotropical landscapes that have been relatively well sampled, based on Jaccard similarity indices, indicate that the Cerrado snakes, lizards and anurans constitute a distinct group relative to the other landscapes. The Cerrado group can be further subdivided in two groups: one associated to the depressions in low altitude, and the other associated to the central or southern plateaus. In northern Cerrado, species richness is greater, and some species are shared with Amazonia or with Caatinga. The number of species generally increases from the more arid, southern areas to the more humid areas close to the Equator. The aquatic, fossorial, and arboreal groups are specially more diverse in the Equatorial areas. The Cerrado of the Tocantins Depression is, after the Amazonian areas, the area with larger species richness. Lizards with high body temperature are more common in the open cerrados located in the interfluvia; species that are more susceptible to dehydration and with lower body temperature occur in the forests at the bottom of the valleys. In the lower portion of the rivers, at the alluvial plains and terraces, there was a high abundance of anurans with aquatic reproduction, occurring in open or forested habitats. In the headwater regions, were the relief is more steep, these species are less common. Lizards are less affected by climatic seasonality than anurans. In the rainy season, specially in December, there were peaks in the frequency of occurrence, activity and richness of anurans. Reproduction is concentrated in the rainy season for most species, but specially for the anurans. The phylogenetic differentiation of the thermo-hydric 329 niches of the anuran and lizard species in the assemblages allows for the partitioning of the resources in time and space. The thermo-hydric niches vary between species with larger body temperature and less susceptibility to dehydration, and species with smaller body temperature, and more prone to dehydration. The spatial and temporal organization of the assemblages is highly influenced by the distribution of the thermohydric resources (microhabitats and microclimates) and by the factors that determine this distribution: the interactions among topography, geology, and seasonality. Temperature and pluviosity determine the organization of the assemblages and the geographic distribution of the species. Historical variations in both temperature and pluviosity may influence the differentiation of species. The filling of the lake caused the loss of populations of many species, but the effects were specially important on species with restricted distributions or that occurred in high densities in habitats that were exclusive of the flooded area. There was also fragmentation of habitats and alterations in the fluvial regimen upriver, affecting the seasonally flooded habitats in this region. The lake also restricts the movement of animals on top of vegetation fragments that are carried by the river, interrupting a possible gene flow between the opposite margins and to the regions downriver. In the communities at the margins of the lake, the main effect of the lake formation was a high increase in the frequency of Chaunus gr. granulosus and Physalaemus centralis in the month of December. In the cerrado, the increase in frequency of several anuran species, mainly Chaunus gr. granulosus, occurred closely after the formation of the lake. In the forest, the high increase in frequency of Physalaemus centralis happened in the next rainy season, when a reduction in the frequency of lizards was also observed. In the Environmental Impact studies conducted in 1998, a small portion of the diversity was recorded. A larger effort is necessary to diagnose the impacts of such a large dam as was UHE LEM. The study of environmental impacts is of fundamental importance to allow the development of techniques that cause less harm to the environment, but is also a strategy to investigate how the environmental conditions influence the organization of biological communities.

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