Reptiles in biological corridors and roadkills in Barbas-Bremen, Quindío, Colombia

Abstract

The biological corridors of Barbas-Bremen are a conservation strategy implemented in the department of Quindío, Colombia, in order to reestablish connectivity between biotic populations in the two largest forest fragments in the region. However, very few studies have evaluated the effectiveness of those corridors as habitat for local wildlife and as facilitators of dispersal of individuals between the natural reserves of Barbas-Bremen. Between July 2014 and March 2015 we performed 18 fieldtrips to characterize the reptile fauna in three biological corridors to test whether mortality of reptiles on a road that crosses the biological corridors is correlated with the distance to them. We used visual sampling and pitfall traps to sample the richness of reptiles in each biological corridor and adjacent grassland; roadkills were recorded during 34 walks on the road. We found 42 reptiles belonging to 16 species; reptiles in biological corridors tend to be arboreal, the species in grassland tend to be terrestrial. There was no relationship between the number of roadkills (64 snakes, 9 species) and the distance to the nearest biological corridor. We did not observe lizards killed on the road. In general, the Barbas-Bremen biological corridors offer a forested habitat to numerous species of reptiles that probably could not survive in the grassland that prevails in the study area; however, more research is required to determine whether these biological corridors encourage the flow of individuals between Barbas-Bremen, and the role that the road there plays in this process.