Diet and morphological aspects of a population of Pseudopaludicola pocoto (Anura: Leptodactylidae) from northeast Brazil

Abstract

Food resources represent an important part of the trophic niche, being an important determinant in the structuring of communities in any phylogenetic group. Thus, we aim to contribute with ecological information about diet composition, trophic niche width and body size of Pseudopaludicola pocoto in a Caatinga area from the Brazilian northeast. The collections were made during the dry season (September 2015) and rainy season (February 2016), where 120 specimens of P. pocoto were collected and analyzed. We recorded the diet of the dry period, composed of thirteen categories of prey, Coleoptera and Hemiptera being the categories of major relative importance. The trophic niche width (Bsta = 0.18) indicates P. pocoto as a specialist consumer. All individuals collected during the rainy season had no stomach contents. In addition, no significant differences were observed between male and female body sizes. Future works addressing the reproduction of this species are stimulated, therefore, they can contribute to the understanding of phenomena such as the absence of stomach contents during the reproductive period and, finally, to prove or not the hypothesis of stochastic in this species.