A rapid inventory of amphibians, squamates, and bats of Mata de Plátano Field Station and Nature Reserve, Arecibo, Puerto Rico

TL;DR

This study provides the first checklist of amphibians, reptiles, and bats at the Mata de Plátano Field Station in Puerto Rico, showing that even small protected areas can host diverse wildlife.

Contribution

The paper presents the first vertebrate checklist for Mata de Plátano Field Station and demonstrates the reserve's ecological importance.

Findings

The survey documented four amphibians, seven lizards, three snakes, and nine bats.

Smaller areas like Mata de Plátano can host a high diversity of species and function as important ecosystems.

Abstract

Puerto Rico harbors a diverse vertebrate fauna with high levels of endemism. However, while several books for vertebrate diversity and local checklists for birds have been published, checklists of amphibians, reptiles, and bats are lacking or nonexistent at both local and regional scales. In this study, we documented the amphibian, reptile, and bat faunas at Mata de Plátano Field Station and Nature Reserve, in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. We document four species of amphibians, seven lizards, three snakes, and nine bats. Despite prior works using samples from this nature reserve, this represents the first vertebrate checklist for the Mata de Plátano Field Station and Nature Reserve. We provide additional natural history observations based on our survey results and highlight the importance of including local and regional checklists of species for downstream research and conservation.

We perform a rapid survey of amphibians, reptiles, and bats at the Mata de Plátano Field Station and Nature Reserve in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, a protected reserve adjacent to a larger forest. Our rapid survey resulted in finding 70%, 14%, and 22% of the amphibians, reptiles, and bat fauna, respectively, highlighting that smaller areas can act as refuges for a wide diversity of taxa and are important in regard to harboring ecologically important species and acting as functional ecosystems.

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