Rasgos funcionales de los anfibios de Ecuador en los diferentes pisos zoogeográficos

Abstract

Abstract: Functional traits are biological features that influence the performance of organisms and their relationship to ecosystem processes, biological interactions, and responses to habitat modification. The present work focuses on developing a bibliographic review of the main functional traits of all amphibian species in Ecuador, differentiating the zoogeographic floor to which they belong, in order to observe patterns in the variety of traits and identify if there are any of them that are in some degree of threat. Information on functional traits was obtained for a total of 609 species of amphibians in Ecuador, distributed in ten zoogeographic floors, being the eastern mountain forest the one with the greatest richness. The greatest variation in size is found in amphibians in dry coastal ecosystems, while smaller sized frogs are found in montane forests. In terms of conservation status, the results show that aquatic-developed species are the ones most often assessed as Critically Endangered.