Frog communities from five remnants of sandy coastal plains in Espírito Santo state, southeastern Brazil

Abstract

Restingas are sandy coastal plains environments belonging to the atlantic forest biome. This ecosystem holds considerable amount of the anuran biodiversity of Brazil. However, there are still important remnants not yet sampled in its entirety (studies of anuran communities). In this study, we inventory and compared the richness and abundance of anuran species occurring in five restinga remnants along the southeastern coast of Espírito Santo state. We sampled amphibians at each site over a three-year period (2012, 2013 and 2014), during both rainy and dry seasons. We used Whittaker plots to analyze the observed pattern of species abundance. We recorded 3.376 anurans belonging to 32 frog species, two of these endemic of restinga ecosystem. This study fills an important geographic gap in terms of knowledge of frog communities’ richness and abundance along Brazilian coast.