Distribution and Ecology of the Western Ecuador Frog Leptodactylus labrosus (Amphibia: Anura: Leptodactylidae)
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Graphical Abstract
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Abstract
Leptodactylus labrosus is a terrestrial sit-and-wait predator; its diet includes ground-level, fossorial, and flying insects, and ants numerically predominate. Bothrops asper is recorded as a predator of L. labrosus. L. labrosus lives mainly in deciduous and semi-deciduous forests, where it is restricted to wet microhabitats, and occasionally in evergreen forests. L. labrosus inhabits northern, central, and southern regions of western coastal Ecuador and northern and central western coastal Peru up to 700 m, and into the dry interandean valleys of southern Ecuador and northern Peru up to 1 300 m. Its distribution encompasses moistly seasonally dry forest in coastal Ecuador and Peru. It also occupies moister areas towards the slopes of the Andes where it is sympatric with three other congeneric species, but at sites of sympatry the species show habitat segregation. The distribution pattern of L. labrosus is shared by several other range-restricted amphibians corresponding to the Tumbesian region, which should be recognized as an endemic Amphibian area. The zone between the Choco and Tumbesian regions, where L. labrosus gets in sympatry with other Leptodactylus species, possess ecological and climatic characteristics that have shaped a unique fauna, including several endemic taxa; and it should be recognized as the west Ecuadorian endemic region.
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