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Zoological Research
Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
ISSN: 2095-8137
Vol. 31, No. 3, 2010, pp. 633-644
Bioline Code: zr10088
Full paper language: Chinese
Document type: Research Article
Document available free of charge

Zoological Research, Vol. 31, No. 3, 2010, pp. 633-644

 en Bats and marsupials as indicators of endemism in the Yungas forest of Argentina
Sandoval, María L.; Szumik, Claudia A. & Barquez, Rubén M.

Abstract

Several studies have characterized the Yungas as a separate biogeographic unit, mainly based in floristic components. However, these characterizations were mainly qualitative and did not include faunal groups. The Yungas have been assumed as a region with rich floral and faunal diversity, but without testing how well they are described by animal distributions. Our study consists of a formal analysis of endemism based on distribution of small mammals in the southernmost portion of the Yungas. This area is biogeographically very interesting because the Yungas are comprised of discontinuous fragments of forests that extend into temperate arid and semiarid habitats. As a first approximation, we contrasted a group of volant species (bats) versus a group of non-volant species (marsupials). Our results show that small mammals are efficient indicators of endemism in Yungas. Eighty percent of the species of small marsupials included in the analysis supported the identified areas as being zones of endemism. Regarding bats, almost 55 percent of the species supported a designation of endemism. The results also show that the areas we considered are congruent with the botanical definition of the Yungas of northwestern Argentina and their subdivisions, an assumption that had not been previously tested with a formal quantitative method. We also found that non-volant species are better indicators of endemism than volant ones at regional scales, but volant species are better indicators than was previously thought.

Keywords
Andean rainforests; Chiroptera; Didelphimorphia; Optimality criterion; Small mammals

 
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