Community of lizards (Squamata: Lacertilia) in habitats with different types of vegetable coverage, in the municipality of Tadó, Chocó, Colombia

Abstract

Objective: To characterizes the lizard community and contribute to the knowledge of the impact of human activities on the populations of these organisms. Methodology: Sampling of the lizard community was carried out in two areas with different vegetation cover (area 1: Management area and area 2: forest area) in the municipality of Tadó, Chocó, Colombia. Results: A total of 111 individuals were recorded, using a sampling effort of 256 hours/man, to obtain a successful capture of 0.34 individuals/hours man; the lizard fauna was represented by eight families, eight genera and 14 species. Almost similar richness values were recorded for the study areas (area 1: 9 species and area 2: 10 species), however, these values presented a low similarity corresponding to 35%; Anolis maculiventris was the most abundant species for both areas, representing 36.8% for area 1 and 27.8% for area 2, identifying itself as the species with the highest importance value and ranking at the top of the ranking index for both study areas. Conclusions: For the community of lizards, the changes generated in the vegetal cover, were manifested mainly on qualitative rather than quantitative predictors, evidencing a low differentiation of the covers from the parameters of abundance, richness, equity and alpha diversity, but a high differentiation at the species replacement.