Construção de signos ecológicos no projeto Meio ambiente e o processo educacional: os ecossistemas e a cultura de Ilha Comprida

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

A new and threatened island-dwelling species of Cycloramphus (Anura : Cycloramphidae) from southeastern Brazil

We describe a new species of Cycloramphus of the eleutherodactylus group from the Ilha dos Alcatrazes, southeastern Brazil, with descriptions of advertisement and territorial calls and notes on natural history. Additionally, we describe the advertisement and territorial calls of C. eleutherodactylus. The new species is diagnosed by the following set of characters: snout truncate in lateral and dorsal views; head wider than long; eyes protruding; tibia shorter than thigh; and distinct advertisement call. The new species is known from a single population on the Ilha dos Alcatrazes, a 149 ha island about 35 kin off São Paulo State coast where these frogs are scattered in a small valley. The very restricted range of the new species of Cycloramphus and the declining quality of its habitat qualify this frog as critically endangered.

Phenotypic changes and small mammal impoverishment on a Brazilian Atlantic Forest Island

Faunal impoverishment and distorted species compositions are common phenomena in oceanic islands; however, many land-bridge islands are poorly inventoried, especially in the Neotropics. We sampled a small mammal community on a land-bridge island (Anchieta Island) along the Brazilian coast. We found only one marsupial Didelphis aurita (Wied-Neuwied, 1826) and two rodent species Oligoryzomys nigripes (Olfers, 1818) and Trinomys iheringi (Thomas, 1911) during 12 months of live trapping and 9195 trap-nights. The diversity of rodents and marsupials was not explained by species-area relations, indicating possible past extinctions. The abundance of D. aurita and O. nigripes was approximately three times higher, while the abundance of T. iheringi was approximately four times lower than abundances reported from other Brazilian Atlantic Forest sites. The population of D. aurita exhibited many phenotypic changes; males were on average 8 % smaller and females produced 30 % less litters than those from the mainland and other land-bridge islands. The long history of forest disturbance, habitat loss, reduction in forest productivity, and the recent introduction of mesopredators may be the major drivers that explain the small mammal community composition on this island. © 2013 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston.