Are some color morphs in Adelphobates galactonotus more threatened by habitat loss?

Adelphobates galactonotus is a dendrobatid frog endemic to the Brazilian Amazon. This poisonous species exhibits aposematic coloration - vibrant colors that warn predators of the presence of toxic substances on its skin. Furthermore, they present a wide morphotypes variety, with dorsal coloration that varies geographically.

The Amazon forest has been losing its natural vegetation cover, due to inappropriate human use of land, such as pastures, monoculture plantations, mining, or urbanization. In addition to habitat loss, deforestation can also indirectly affect the effectiveness of aposematic coloration since the loss of canopy influences the amount of light that reaches the ground, affecting the contrast between the environment and the individual. These factors mean that certain morphotypes may be under greater pressure.

This project aims to investigate how A. galactonotus phenotypic diversity may be threatened by loss of habitat. As deforestation in Amazon is not randomly distributed, we expect that loss of habitat will not be equally distributed among morphotypes. Moreover, we will test wich antropic use affects the most A. galactonotus and how habitat loss has accumulated over the last few decades.

For that, we supplemented literature records with records from citizen science from the iNaturalist platform, classifying the individuals in morphotypes based in their dorsal coloration. The landscape and land use conditions were obtained from MapBiomas platform for the years 1985, 2000, 2015 and 2023.

This project can help to understand how deforestation can lead to the loss of phenotypic biodiversity in this species, as well as which anthropogenic use make ir more susceptible to extinction. Our results aim to assist action plans for the conservation of this species and its phenotypic diversity.