Species Diversities of Herpetofaunal Samples from Similar Microhabitats at Two Tropical Sites

Amphibians and reptiles were collected from tree buttresses in two different regions to determine whether within-habitat species diversity differences were evident. Using the method suggested by Pielou (1966), the average species diversity per individual was H' = 1.92 ± .47 for the collection of amphibians and reptiles taken from tree buttresses in a tropical dry forest formation in Thailand, H' = 4.95 ± .84 for the tree buttress collection taken in Ecuador. Part of the within-habitat diversity differences are due to a difference in kind of organism: a large number of terrestrial frogs are present in Ecuador; there are no terrestrial frogs from the Thai site. Other differences are also operating, however. The number of lizard species are comparable in the two collections (8 from Thailand, 10 from Ecuador) , yet the Brillouin diversity measure of the Ecuadorian lizard collection was NH = 2.24, higher than the diversity of the Thai lizard collection, NH = 1.25. The diversity differences are postulated to be due to different sizes of the total forest herpetofaunas of the two regions.