Amphbian larvae survey at Emas National Park, Brazil (2012/2013, 2014/2015, 2017/2018)

Multiple factors contribute to explaining the composition and structure of
communities and the niche is still the most used theory to describe how
organisms interact with such factors to generate biological communities’
patterns. Both biotic and abiotic aspects of the environment along with
the geographic space interact in complex ways with the behavior and
physiological tolerance of organisms to structure a community. In this
study, we tested the potential effects of the environment and space that
may determine the distribution of tadpoles in aquatic habitats located at
Emas National Park. To this end, we sampled 23 aquatic habitats, described
their environmental characteristics, recorded their geographic location,
and carried out a survey of the tadpoles found. Later, we evaluated the
effect of environmental and spatial variables on the distribution of
species, through a Partial Redundancy analysis, using matrices of
environmental descriptors and geographic location. We found that both
environmental and spatial factors drive the distribution and the species
composition of the studied assemblages. Also, when we analyzed the pattern
of co-occurrence, we observed that the number of co-occurrence pairs of
species in the Emas National Park is less frequent than expected by
chance, suggesting that besides the effect of abiotic components
(environmental and spatial factors), competition is a co-structuring
factor in the assemblages of tadpoles.