Classification and sensitivity of taxonomic and functional diversity indices of anurans in the Andean coffee cultural landscape

Abstract

Taxonomical and functional facets of diversity are crucial to imderstanding the effects of landscape transformaron on species assemblages, although there is a lack of consensus on the degree of congruence between diversity’ indices across land-uses. We evaluated the effect of natural and anthropogenic land cover types on anurans in the Andean región of Colombia. Changes between land cover types were detected but no effect of dimatic season on the structure of anuran assemblages. Species with larger body sizes showed a greater affínity for anthropogenic land cover types. We analyzed the functional facet of diversity- (based on diet and morpho-logical traits) and discovered that the degree of congruence with taxonomic diversity metrics changed when comparing different land cover types. We evidenced a strong effect of the type of vegetation cover on the Hill numbers (from zero to third orders) for functional diversity’ but not for the other taxonomic diversity indices. Of all the diversity metrics evaluated, we found that Rao’s quadratic entropy, functional dispersión, and average functional diversity were the most sensitive indices to land-use change. Surprisingly, the surrounding of houses, the land cover type with the greater degree of anthropogenic intervention had the higher valúes of functional diversity, suggesting broader types of species resource acquisition. These results suggest the importance of landscape mosaics in the conservation of different facets of anuran diversity. We also emphasize the importance of measuring anuran functional traits to understand more comprehensively the effects of landscape trans-formation at the assemblage level and to appropriately direct conservation and management actions.