Natural history of the critically endangered salamander Pseudoeurycea robertsi
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Biodiversity, Ecology, Zoology, Natural Resource Management, Spatial and Geographic Information Science
- Keywords
- endangered species, conservation, Plethodontidae, Abies forest, deforestation, environmental niche modelling, morphometric geometric, Cyt b, Nevado de Toluca Volcano, Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt
- Copyright
- © 2019 Sunny et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2019. Natural history of the critically endangered salamander Pseudoeurycea robertsi. PeerJ Preprints 7:e27911v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27911v1
Abstract
Mexico is one of the most diverse countries that is losing a large amount of forest due to land use change, these data put Mexico in fourth place for global deforestation rate, therefore, Mexico occupies the first place in number of endangered species in the world with 665 endangered species. It is important to study amphibians because they are among the most threatened vertebrates on Earth and their populations are rapidly declining worldwide due primarily to the loss and degradation of their natural habitats. Pseudoeurycea robertsi is a micro-endemic and critically endangered Plethodontid salamander from the Nevado de Toluca Volcano and to date almost nothing is known about its natural history therefore, we survey fourteen sites of the Nevado de Toluca Volcano a mountain that is part of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, Mexico. We carry out the most exhaustive sampling scheme of this species throughout the Nevado de Toluca Volcano to know the number of individuals and the microhabitat features associated with the presence of P. robertsi. Likewise, we carry out a morphometric study and coloration measurements of P. robertsi individuals and we determine the potential distribution of P. robertsi and the other 3 species of pletodontids present in the NTV using ecological niche modeling and to determine the most important habitat features associated with the presence of salamander species, as well as to know the niche overlap among salamander species. This information will help raise conservation strategies for this micro-endemic and critically endangered salamander.
Author Comment
This is a submission to PeerJ for review.
Supplemental Information
Records of the four salamander species
Records of the four salamander species
Coloration patterns dataset
Coloration patterns dataset