Science Snacks: Climate Change in Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, Mexico

Image by Dr Timothy J. Colston PhD.

Paper Title: Climate change, aguadas and herpetofaunal community structure in Calakmul biosphere reserve, Campeche, Mexico

Micro-podcast: If you would rather listen to the summary, check out episodes of our micro-podcast, Science Snacks, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

Paper Summary:

In Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, Mexico, water is a limiting resource – this means it is a factor that restricts the numbers of a population. In the reserve, water only exists in the form of temporary lakes, locally known as aguadas. These aguadas are filled by rainfall (which has been decreasing over the years due to climate change), and they are the only source of water to both the wildlife and the human communities in the area.Herpetofauna refers to all the reptiles and amphibians of a particular region. The amount of herpetofauna species, and how many individuals were seen of each species were studied by Operation Wallacea teams between 2014 to 2016. The  results suggest that herpetofaunal species in Calakmul Biosphere Reserve are being affected by climate change, but it is not yet clear if the change in water distribution is resulting in the decline of herpetofauna or simply altering their choice of habitat.

Authors: Barão-Nóbrega, J.A.L., Lopez-Cen, A., Sima-Panti, D., Acton, C., Slater, K.

Conference: 54th Annual Meeting of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation

Year: 2017

Read the full paper

If you would rather listen to the summary, check out episodes of our micro-podcast, Science Snacks, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

Opwall’s Science Snacks is where we share our conservation biology knowledge with you, in the form of tasty little snacks! You’ll find summaries of research paper and micropodcasts about our most exciting tid-bits.