Spatial patterns and biodiversity conservation of snakes from Cerrado biome

Abstract

Until recently, the conservation of Cerrado has been neglected and attempts to establish conservation priorities were usually based on subjective criteria. In this paper, macroecological data of distribution of 129 species of snakes in the Cerrado were used to evaluate spatial patterns in species richness and to establish a system of potential areas that preserves all snake species in the region. The five environment variables used as predictors explained only 34.65% of the variance in species richness. In order to establish conservation priorities, optimization procedures were used. These procedures showed that 14 cells must be selected to represent all species at least once. Incorporating in the model the human occupation in Cerrado, a northward shift in selected cells is observed, allowing minimizing potential conservation-human development conflicts. These results must be considered preliminary and more detailed studies are necessary to evaluate the spatial patterns in snakes’ richness of Cerrado, considering the lack of knowledge on distribution and taxonomy of these species at local scales. However, the conservation biogeography approach used here is a first step towards understanding the overall diversity patterns and to establish the best methodological approaches to conserve them.