Serpentes de um fragmento urbano de Mata Atlântica, Pernambuco, Brasil: estratégias para conservação e manejo

Abstract

There are about 219 identified species of serpents on the Atlantic Forest Biome which corresponds to 54% of the amount Brazilian species, however, information about serpents’ taxocenosis on Brazilian Northeast is still incipient. In order to plan actions for snake conservation and increase the science of natural history, the knowledge of local snake fauna, specially inside and around protected areas, is essential. Along to this science, it’s made necessary to popularize this information to the local community, since, despite their fundamental role in nature, snakes are feared by great part of human population, mentioned in several myths and beliefs and are commonly slain when sighted. Thus, this work’s objective was to catalog the serpent community of Parque Estadual de Dois Irmãos – PEDI, and also in this case the Federal Rural Pernambuco University (UFRPE), posteriorly performing educative actions with the academic community, evidenciating the importance and necessity of care with this group. The species on PEDI was inventoried for three years, between October 2014 and November 2017 in the Biodiversity Research Program (PPBIO) module and in the anthropized area through active pursuit, interception traps and occasional encounters and in UFRPE through occasional third party record, asides from phone calls and social networking, between June 2015 and May 2018, both localities are on the metropolitan region of Recife city, PE (8º00’51.86”S, 34º57’02.14”O). A total of 23 species distributed through five families were recorded to PEDI, with most diversity coming from the Dipsadidae family. PEDI's composition has been shown similar to other Atlantic Forest areas from Brazilian Northeast, however the rarefaction curve has shown that the sample efforts were enough to obtain important data of the taxocenosis. Majority of the species possesses ample geographic distribution, however two species are endemic from the northeastern Atlantic Forest, Atractus maculates Boulenger, 1894 and Dredophidion atlantica Freire, Caramaschi and Gonçalves, 2010 showing this area's relevance to these and others species' conservation. 18 species were recorded on UFRPE, with greater predominance to the Dipsadidae family. Five itinerant expositions were performed on the main departments with greater indication of serpent appearance. The amount of 1580 people distributed around students and staff participated. In the campus were found three poisonous taxon Crotalus durissus, Micrurus lemniscatus and M. ibiboboca, being the latter more abundant. Ambiental education actions must be continuous and be part of the UFRPE ophidianfauna conservation strategy.