Aspectos ecológicos de Enyalius bilineatus Duméril & Bibron, 1837 (Squamata, Leiosauridae) na Floresta Nacional de Ritápolis, Minas Gerais

Abstract

The Enyalius bilineatus presents high adaptive plasticity, being able to take benefit of the anthropized environments. However, the studies that have found a greater tolerance of this species in damaged areas were done only in regions of sympatric occurrence with Enyalius perditus, Enyalius boulengeri or Enyalius brasiliensis. The aim of this work was to compare the abundance of E. bilineatus in the impacted and preserved environments at the National Forest of Ritápolis (Flona de Ritápolis), as well as to verify if there is a difference in the abundance between the “Flona de Ritápolis” and its buffer zone (BZ), between the effectiveness of the sampling methods used and whether the animals have a pattern of seasonal abundance. This study was performed at the Flona de Ritápolis, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Sampling took place between october 2012 and july 2018, combining three methodologies: limited time search (168 hours), pitfall traps (3.724 buckets/day) and funnel (7.980 funnels/day) associated with the guide fence. The sample units were installed in areas of semideciduous forest in early and advanced succession stage of regeneration. The findings identified for the first time that although E. bilineatus resist in impacted environments, its abundance was greater in forest preserved fragments at the Flona de Ritápolis. This result has evidenced that in places where E. bilineatus is present without the need to partition niches with congeners, its preference is for forests in an advanced successional stage of regeneration. The abundance of E. bilineatus sampled in the BZ fragment is very low, which may probably be due to “Rio das Mortes”, together with the agglomeration of rural villages, agricultural areas, highways, vicinal roads, and a mining factory, can act as a permeable barrier, hindering the dispersion. Between september and december, in all the years of sampling, occurred the greatest amount of capture of the lizards E. bilineatus in the Flona de Ritápolis. The three sampling methods used in this work presented the same capture efficiency. It is worth highlighting that time-limited search is a collector-dependent sampling technique, therefore it is not guaranteed that other researchers will have the same result when using this method.