Enhanced Phylogenetic Diversity of Anuran Communities: A Result of Species Loss in an Agricultural Environment

Abstract

The great environmental changes induced by anthropogenic activities reshaped many ecosystem processes. Thus, the previously natural landscapes have been turned into mosaics of natural and seminatural lands embedded into human-modified landscape. To understand effects of these landscape modifications on the anuran communities, we aimed to compare pond-breeding anuran communities in a well-preserved forest with communities in agricultural landscape. We tested the values of taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional diversity, by analyzing four data matrixes containing environmental, phy- logenetic, morphological and abundance information from 15 anuran species along this environmental gradient. Our analysis showed that only the phylogenetic component of the diversity was linked to the changes on the gradient and that the loss of environmental quality generates enhanced phylogenetic diversity. We showed that the anthropogenic disturbance acts negatively on anuran communities, forcing the species to adapt and behave like generalist species in order to survive at the modified places now available, where there were well-preserved forests before the humans changed it.