Becker Carlos Guilherme, Fonseca Carlos Roberto, Haddad Célio Fernando Baptista, Batista Rômulo Fernandes, Prado Paulo Inácio
Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, 13083-970 Campinas SP, Brazil.
Science. 2007 Dec 14;318(5857):1775-7. doi: 10.1126/science.1149374.
The worldwide decline in amphibians has been attributed to several causes, especially habitat loss and disease. We identified a further factor, namely "habitat split"-defined as human-induced disconnection between habitats used by different life history stages of a species-which forces forest-associated amphibians with aquatic larvae to make risky breeding migrations between suitable aquatic and terrestrial habitats. In the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, we found that habitat split negatively affects the richness of species with aquatic larvae but not the richness of species with terrestrial development (the latter can complete their life cycle inside forest remnants). This mechanism helps to explain why species with aquatic larvae have the highest incidence of population decline. These findings reinforce the need for the conservation and restoration of riparian vegetation.
全球两栖动物数量的减少归因于多种原因，尤其是栖息地丧失和疾病。我们发现了另一个因素，即“栖息地分割”——定义为人类导致的同一物种不同生活史阶段所使用的栖息地之间的隔离——这迫使与森林相关且幼虫水生的两栖动物在适宜的水生和陆地栖息地之间进行危险的繁殖迁徙。在巴西大西洋森林，我们发现栖息地分割对幼虫水生的物种丰富度有负面影响，但对陆地发育的物种丰富度没有影响（后者可以在森林残余地内完成其生命周期）。这一机制有助于解释为什么幼虫水生的物种种群数量下降发生率最高。这些发现强化了保护和恢复河岸植被的必要性。
