Herpetological richness and diversity in an offshore archipelago of the Tropical Eastern Pacific

Coiba National Park (CNP) comprises an offshore archipelago of around 35 islands and islets of different areas off the coast of the Panama Pacific that separated from Mainland around 12,000 ya. In this study, Visual Encounter Surveys and pitfall traps assembled with occurrence data from GBIF and other sources were employed to assess the herpetological richness, and community assemblages along four different islands of CNP and compared these to Mainland. Amphibian richness was lower in the islands (maximum 5 spp.) compared to the Mainland (11 spp.); meanwhile, reptile richness was similar between the Mainland and Coiba island (19 spp.) and were higher compared to the other islands. The higher species estimates for amphibian and reptiles in CNP were five and 27 respectively and were lower compared with those reported in the CNP´s management plan. The Mexican White-lipped Frog (Leptodactylus fragilis) was identified which constitutes the first formal record of the species in CNP. The amphi..., Herpetological Surveys
Surveys were conducted between July 2019 and August 2023 along 69 transects distributed in 18 sites and five locations (Figure 1) from the Mainland in front of CNP (25 transects) and on four islands of CNP archipelago: Canales de Afuera (4 transects), Rancheria (4 transects), Coiba (30 transects), and Jicaron (6 transects) (Table 1, Table 2). Several field trips occurred each year except for 2020 when only one site in one location was visited.
Visual encounter surveys (VES) (Crump & Norman, 1994; Rodda, Campbell, Fritts, & Clark, 2007) were used to identify metamorphic amphibians and terrestrial reptiles. VES were conducted along one to six randomly deployed 2 m wide and 100 m long transects at each site during day and night without time constraints, and each transect was visited between one to five times. Each transect was separated at least 20 m from each other, and two people constantly surveyed the transects. Search effort (in person-hr) was calculated..., , # Herpetological richness and diversity in an offshore archipelago of the Tropical Eastern Pacific

This README file was generated on 2025-02-18 by Eric E. Flores.

GENERAL INFORMATION
Title of Dataset: Herpetological richness and diversity in an offshore archipelago of the Tropical Eastern Pacific

1. Author Information
A. Principal Investigator Contact Information
Name: Eric E. Flores
Institution: Coiba Scientific Station (COIBA AIP)
Address: Gustavo Lara street, building 145B, City of Knowledge, Clayton, PO Box 0843-01853, Panama, Republic of Panama
2. Email: [[e-mail]](mailto:[e-mail])

B. Associate or Co-investigator Contact Information
Name: NA
Institution: NA
Address: NA
Email: NA
3\. Date of data collection (single date, range, approximate date): 2019-2023
4\. Geographic location of data collection: Coiba National Park, Panama
5\. Information about funding sources that supported the collection of the data: Coiba Scientific Station (COIBA AIP)...