The present study aimed to determine the richness, occurrence constancy, reproductive modes, standard of abundance distribution, season of vocalization and to test correlation among climatic variables and activity of vocalization of anurans in a region of the Pampa Biome, Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul State. During the period of November/2001 to October/2002 monthly collections were carried out utilizing the ‘survey at breeding site’ method and examination of specimens kept in the Coleção Herpetológica do Setor de Zoologia da Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (ZUFSM). The occurrence of 25 species of anurans was recorded. The anurofauna recorded represents 30% of the species known to occur in Rio Grande do Sul, and comprises species generally associated with grasslands in this state and neighboring countries. Four reproductive modes were recorded: mode 1 (14 species; 58.3%); mode 11 and 30 (9 species; 37.5%) and mode 24 (1 species; 4.2%). The low diversification of reproductive modes is likely related to the homogeneity of the grassland habitat. Most species were constant or accessory in the study area and the species abundance distribution patterns fit in the Broken Stick and Log-normal models, characterized by homogeneity of species abundance distribution. Most species showed great plasticity in habitat, but few were plastic in vocalization sites use. There was a weak positive correlation between species richness and precipitation. There was also a weak positive correlation between the abundance of species calling activity and maximum average temperatures. These correlations indicated that, in the study area, the abundance of calling males is more affected by the temperature, and species richness is more affected by precipitation, despite the fact that significantly higher species richness occurs during the hottest period of the year. These results showed that the climatological variables examined were not enough to explain the seasonal occurrence of species, thus the influence of other environmental variables merit to be tested in future studies.
Anuran community; abundance models; reproductive modes; seasonality; subtropical region
