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1、Essay写作小生境和丰富的两栖动物之间的关系Disclaimer:This work has been submitted by a student.This is not an example of the work produced by our Essay Writing Service.You can view samples of our professional work here.Any opinions,findings,conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the aut
2、hors and do not necessarily reflect the views of UK Essays.The relationship between microhabitat and abundance of amphibians in the highlands of the Andes in EcuadorAbstractIn ecology,different scales have been implemented to study the relationship that exists between organisms and their environment
3、. Microhabitat is the smallest one of these scales and can influence the distribution of organisms,like amphibians.In this study,I try to test what relationship exists between the abundance of amphibians and the microhabitats present in the high Andean areas of southern Ecuador.I use a dataset of th
4、e biodiversity of amphibians and classification of seven microhabitats(bunchgrasses,marshes,shrubs,water,rocks,intervention and forest),in six river basins.The relationship between abundance and microhabitat was calculated using a quasi-Poisson model.In total,187 individuals and six species of amphi
5、bians were recorded.The microhabitat of marshes and bunchgrasses showed to be significant in the abundance of amphibians.The presence of these two microhabitats increases the number of amphibian individuals.This result can help in the elaboration of conservation plans focused on the protection of mi
6、crohabitats that are being used by amphibians and thus guarantee their survival.Essay writing service on IntroductionGlobally,ecosystems have been studied mostly on a large scale,as a single landscape.However,biodiversity and environmental variables in an ecosystem are heterogeneous.Several studies
7、have shown that groups of fauna will not occupy the whole ecosystem as their habitat throughout its life,but only use a small scale of the ecosystem,depending on the environmental conditions that it has12345.This is how Morris in 1987 defined the term microhabitat as“A discrete fraction of the habit
8、at,with specific niche requirements,directly or indirectly influencing the distribution of species”.Thus,began to implement scales in ecology to study an ecosystem and its biodiversity.It is considered that there is a hierarchy in the selection of a microhabitat,where the organism first chooses a pl
9、ace to live and then decides about the use of other sectors6.As a result,individuals choose places where they maximize their survival and reproductive capacity7.In the case of amphibians,the decision to occupy a microhabitat would be linked to its physiology.The permeability of the skin and eggs of
10、amphibians makes them able to absorb elements of the environment8;which also makes them organisms very sensitive to changes in temperature and humidity9.This sensibility in conjunction with the low dispersion capacity of amphibians limits the colonization of new habitats and causes several species o
11、f this group to have high specificity and fidelity to a microhabitat.In the tropics of South America,studies of the relationship between amphibian diversity and the microhabitat that they occupy have generally focused on areas of low montane forest101112.The high Andean regions(>3000 m a.s.l.)pre
12、sent a lack of studies in this aspect of ecology,probably due to the low richness of amphibians that occur at this altitude.In this work,I present the relationship between seven microhabitats and the abundance of amphibians in high Andean areas of Ecuador.MethodsData CollectionThe data was provided
13、by the Biology Laboratory of the University of Azuay and its project“Characterization of the biodiversity of plants,birds and amphibians of the high Andes of the province of Azuay,Ecuador”.In this project,6 river basins were used as sampling units.Within each river basin,information was obtained on
14、the richness(number of species) and abundance(number of individuals per species)of amphibians. Characterization of microhabitats present in each river basin was also carried out.This classification was made based on the vegetation present in the study area,modifying a previous classification made by
15、 the staff of the Missouri Botanical Garden13.A total of seven microhabitats were identified:bunchgrasses,shrubs,marshes,forests of paper tree(Polylepis sp.),water(rivers and ponds),rocks and intervention(bare soil).The data were obtained during three surveys covering the dry and rainy season of 201
16、8.Statistical AnalysisTo test if there is a relationship between the type of microhabitat and the abundance of amphibians I run a quasi-Poisson GLM to account for over dispersion,so the dispersion parameter is not fixed at 1.In the structure of the model,I use abundance of each amphibians species by river basin as the response variable and the percentage of each of the seven types of microhabi
