Herpetofaunal species richness of southeastern national parks
Tracey
D. Tuberville1,*, John D. Willson1, Michael E. Dorcas2,
and J. Whitfield Gibbons1
1Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, Aiken, SC 29802.
2Davidson College, Department of biology, Davidson, NC 28035.
*Corresponding author - Tuberville@srel.edu
Abstract
The Southeast is the stronghold of US herpetofaunal biodiversity and comprises
approximately half of the nation's species of amphibians and reptiles,
of which about 20% are endemic. However, few areas have been inventoried,
thus hampering efforts to monitor and protect populations. We conducted
2-year herpetological inventories of 16 parks within the National Park
Service's Southeast Coast Network. We used a wide variety of standard
field techniques to document species occurrences and augmented our collecting
records with historical data from museums, publised liteature, and personal
collections. We documented the presence of 123 native species of amphibians
and reptiles at the 16 parks, with numbers of species ranging between
6 and 64 per park. Many southeastern parks support rich assemblages of
herpetofauna.
SREL Reprint #2896
Tuberville,
T. D., J. D. Willson, M. E. Dorcas and J. W. Gibbons 2005. Herpetofaunal
species richness of southeastern national parks. Southeastern Naturalist
4:537-569.
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