Realm: Terrestrial
Climate: Temperate/Tropical
Biome: Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests
Central latitude: 18.373470
Central longitude: -89.521280
Duration: 5 years, from 2014 to 2018

1176 records

52 distinct species

Across the time series Anolis rodriguezii is the most frequently occurring species

Methods

Calakmul is a long extension of the tropical jungle that continues the Mayan Biosphere Reserve in the Peten province in northern Guatemala. The Calakmul Biosphere Reserve covers an area of 723,000 hectares, but it is attached to two state reserves: Balam-kim and Balam-ku which cover all the length of the west side of the biosphere. The total area covered by the connected reserves is 1,200,000 hectares. Unlike most of the jungles of Yucatan, the jungle of the Calakmul reserve did not serve for timber production, it was also not turned on for the development of agriculture and it is then one of the last pieces of virgin forest in Mexico. The northern parts of Calakmul have Deciduous tropical forests, where trees typically have a canopy of 8-20 meters height and lose their leaves during the dry season (from December to May), but most of the reserve has medium-deciduous tropical trees (Beletsky, 1999) . The tropical jungles medium-deciduous trees have an average canopy of 15-40 meters in height, although most of the trees are 20-30 meters. The canopy can be closed or partially open, and during the dry season, 20% to 30% of trees lose their leaves (Beletsky, 1999). The dominant species in this jungle are: ramon ( Brosimium alicastrum ), chicozapote ( Manilkara zapota ), ceiba ( Ceiba pentandra ), zapotillo ( Pouteria reticulata ), chechen ( Metopium bronwei ) chaca ( Bursera simaruba ), copal ( Protium copal ), tzalam ( Lysiloma bahamensis ) and mahogany or mahogany ( Swietenia microphylla : Ogata et al ., 1999). Calakmul also contains many temporary lakes (aguadas) that form during the rainy season and they can last until the dry season. The fauna of Calakmul has jaguars, pumas, ocelots, jaguarondis, tapirs, deer, peccaries, howler monkeys and spider monkeys, in addition to 50 species of reptiles and amphibians and 350 resident or migratory bird species. To collect data on reptiles, active searching took place on transects (measuring ~2km in lenght) between 9:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. (for studies of daytime species) and between 7:30 p.m. - 11:30 p.m. (for studies of nocturnal species). These searches were made at a fixed width of 5m on both sides of the transect.. For each animal observed, the species was identified using field guides (Lee, 2000; Kholer, 2008; Mandujuano et al., 2010; Cedeno-Vasquez et al., 2010), the position of GPS was recorded and the time was recorded

Citation(s)