Herpetology Notes, volume 12: 749-763 (2019) (published online on 09 July 2019) Lizard fauna from the state of Paraíba, northeastern Brazil: current knowledge and sampling discontinuities Lissa Dellefrate Franzini1,*, Izabel Regina Soares da Silva1, Daniel Oliveira Santana1, Fagner Ribeiro Delfim, Gustavo Henrique Calazans Vieira1, and Daniel Oliveira Mesquita1 Abstract. We compiled a list of lizard species from the state of Paraíba, Northeast Brazil to systematize and widen the knowledge about the lizard fauna in that state, which is still poorly known in most of its municipalities and has never been systematized in a species list. We considered data from the literature and the major scientific collections that house specimens from the state of Paraíba and we gathered a total of 2,767 records for 48 municipalities, corresponding to 36 lizard species of 27 genera and 12 families. The capital, municipality of João Pessoa, presented the highest number of species records. This number of records is a result of a high sampling effort, which is probably a consequence of the higher number of reptile specialists working in this municipality, which have for long contributed to the scientific knowledge on the region. Most of the records come from municipalities with protected areas near research centres, which are usually more accessible. In the remaining municipalities, sampling is still deficient, mainly in regions of the Caatinga domain. We calculated the evolutionary distinctiveness (ED) of the lizard species compiled in the study and verified that Diploglossus lessonae, Coleodactylus meridionalis, Lygodactylus kuglei, Iguana iguana, and Salvator merianae represent important evolutionary histories in the biodiversity of the state. Keywords. Squamata, Caatinga, Atlantic Forest, species list Introduction The state of Paraíba is situated on the easternmost portion of the South American continent and much Lizards are key organisms for studies in numerous of its biodiversity is still unknown. Rodrigues (1986; fields in biology, such as evolution, behaviour, 2000; 2003) demonstrated that samplings are still population, community ecology, and life-history theory deficient in the region. The state comprises vegetation (Mesquita et al., 2016), and have even contributed physiognomies that vary from coastal rainforests to medicine advances (Mahdavi et al., 2008). This (Atlantic Forest domain) to semiarid and arid regions in successful group of reptiles inhabits virtually all places the seasonally dry forests (Caatinga domain), including on Earth, except the highest and coldest ones (Pianka Caatinga enclaves’ moist forests, known as “brejos de and Vitt, 2003). Over 6,000 lizard species have already altitude”, which are islands of moist forest surrounded by been described, a number that represents more than half dry forests. Most of the original Atlantic Forest domain of all living reptiles known to date (Uetz and Hošek, coverage has been lost due to anthropic occupation, and 2016). In Brazil, more than 270 species are known to the Caatinga still suffers with the transformation of its occur (Costa and Bérnils, 2018). However, there are still natural landscapes into crops and pastures (Leal et al., many taxonomic problems to be solved and knowledge 2005; Tabarelli et al., 2005). gaps to be fulfilled, mainly in North and Northeast Another worrying issue in this state is the extent of regions of the country. its protected areas. Less than 10% of its territory is legally protected, being only approximately 1.2% of the original Caatinga formation under some degree of legal protection (MMA, 2011). In the Atlantic Forest, this number is higher (6%) (MMA, 2011), but it is still under the goal of 17% of legally protected areas until 1 Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências Biológicas (Zoologia), Departamento Sistemática e Ecologia, 2020, defined in the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, a short Universidade Federal da Paraíba, João Pessoa, PB, Brazil. term international plan to save biodiversity (Prates and * Corresponding author: [email protected] Irving, 2015). 750 Lissa Dellefrate Franzini et al. The knowledge about the species that occur in a articles from any other collection from the analysis. state is critical to their conservation. Regarding reptile Even though Serpentes is a clade placed among lizards, and amphibian fauna from Paraíba, the few published we decided not to include it in the present study due to species lists focused on small regions and conservation particularities regarding snake biology (high diversity, units (e.g., Arzabe et al., 2005; Santana et al., 2008). In low abundance). Also, a detailed study of the snakes of this sense, we aim to systematize data concerning lizard Paraíba is already available (Filho et al., 2017). species from the state of Paraíba. We consider data Taxonomic nomenclature and classification followed from the literature and the major scientific collections the Brazilian List of Reptile Species (Costa and Bérnils, that house specimens from that state. Additionally, we 2018). We included the introduced species Hemidactylus provide a brief discussion about their conservation mabouia (Moreau de Jonnès, 1818) in the analysis status and identify areas of poor sampling to highlight because it is well-established in Brazil and it is listed in the need of broadening the knowledge of lizards from the Brazilian List of Reptile Species (Costa and Bérnils, the region. 2018). To evaluate the species’ conservation status, we consulted both the International Union for Conservation Material and Methods of Nature (IUCN, 2017) and the Brazilian red list of threatened species (MMA, 2014). In the present list, we compiled data from scientific Even though more specific site information or exact collections and literature. We obtained data from coordinates were available for part of the data, all deposited specimens on Coleção Herpetológica da localities were listed as municipalities, since this was Universidade Federal da Paraíba (CHUFPB), Coleção the sole information available for most records. We built Herpetológica da Universidade de Brasília (CHUNB) a rarefaction curve based on individuals vs. species to and Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de São Paulo evaluate the expected richness on our sampling. For (MZUSP). Specimens from CHUFPB and MZUSP were this, we used the software EstimateS 9.1.0 (Colwell analysed by FRD in order to avoid misidentification. et al., 2012) with 1,000 randomizations, without In CHUNB, the identification of the specimens was reposition, and Chao1P as estimator of species richness performed by the collection curator, Dr. Guarino Rinaldi (Lopez et al., 2012). We used an individual-based curve Colli, following the same guidelines. Complementary because our sampling design was also individual based, data was obtained from the online database Specieslink and because the individuals are the entities that carry (2017). In this database, we obtained records from taxonomic information (Gotelli and Colwell, 2001). Museum of Comparative Zoology – Harvard University Another rarefaction curve was built considering only (MCZ) and Coleção de Répteis do Museu de Zoologia data deposited in CHUFPB, where each decade was da Unicamp (ZUEC). Because we were not able to considered as a sample. This analysis was performed check the identifications obtained from Specieslink, in the same way as described for the individuals vs. we included only those species that, by the experience species curve but with a Chao2P estimator, since it of the authors, could occur in the listed localities. A had a lower standard deviation. We evaluated only the voucher per municipality per institution and the number species deposited over time for the CHUFPB to better of specimens deposited is provided by species in the understand the information provided by this collection, Appendix. which concentrates most of the data about the lizard We carried out the search on scientific literature species from the state of Paraíba. using the terms: “lizards + Paraíba”; “herpetofauna + For phylogenetic comparisons, we used the hypothesis Paraíba”; “reptiles + Paraíba” in Google Scholar and provided by Zheng and Wiens (2016), which is a time- Web of Science databases. Using the same criteria, we calibrated phylogeny for Squamata based on 52 genes carried out a similar search to obtain data concerning sampled for 4,162 species. We pruned their topology to the lizard fauna from the states of Alagoas, Ceará, obtain a tree where only the state of Paraíba’s lizards Pernambuco, and Rio Grande do Norte. We consulted were retained, keeping the time of diversification in data from those states to compare the lizard fauna from the pruned phylogeny and maintaining Sphenodon Paraíba with nearby localities. We excluded from the punctatus Gray, 1842 for comparative reasons. compilation all articles that mentioned only records However, since some species from the state of Paraíba deposited in CHUFPB to avoid data redundancy, data are not represented on that hypothesis, we replaced those from the other collections analysed in this study were not species by the most related species in Zheng and Wiens’ found in the literature and therefore we did not exclude tree. The replacements were: Diploglossus bilobatus Lizard fauna from the state of Paraíba, northeastern Brazil 751 (O’Shaughnessy, 1874) by D. lessonae Peracca, 1890, ED values among the different species IUCN Red List Colobosauroides cearensis Cunha, Lima-Verde and status/categories and, since many species occur