A New Population Record And Conservation Assessment Of The Santa Marta Poison Arrow Frog Colostethus Ruthveni Kaplan, 1997 (Anura: Dendrobatidae) From Sierra Nevada De Santa Marta, Colombia

JoTT Note

3(3): 1633-1636

A new population record and conservation assessment of the Santa Marta Poison Arrow Frog Colostethus ruthveni Kaplan, 1997 (Anura: Dendrobatidae) from Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia
José F. González-Maya1, Mauricio González2, Diego Zárrate-Charry3, Fidela Charry4, Amancay A. Cepeda5 & Sergio A. Balaguera-Reina6
Centro de Desarrollo Sostenible Námaku,Minca, Magdalena, Colombia. 1,2,3,4 5,6 Proyecto de Conservación de Aguas y Tierras, ProCAT Colombia/Internacional, Calle 15 # 5 - 62, El Rodadero, Santa Marta, Colombia. Email: 1 jfgonzalez-maya@gmail.com (corresponding author), 2 emgonzalez@procat-conservation.org,3 dzarrate@ procat-conservation.org, 4 fcharry@procat-conservation.org, 5 acepeda@procat-conservation.org, 6sbalaguera@procatconservation.org
1,2,3,4

Colombia is considered among the countries with the highest levels of amphibian species richness (Rueda-Almonacid et al. 2004), but it is also one of the countries with the greatest risks to its biodiversity in general (Sisk et al. 1994; Brooks et al. 2002). Poison arrow or poison dart frogs (Anura: Dendrobatidae), are tropical species restricted to the New World and
Date ofpublication (online): 26 March 2011 Date of publication (print): 26 March 2011 ISSN 0974-7907 (online) | 0974-7893 (print) Editor: Mirco Solé Manuscript details: Ms # o2513 Received 21 July 2010 Final received 09 January 2011 Finally accepted 25 February 2011 Citation: González-Maya, J.F., M. González, D. Zárrate-Charry, F. Charry, A.A. Cepeda & S.A. Balaguera-Reina (2011). A new population recordand conservation assessment of the Santa Marta Poison Arrow Frog Colostethus ruthveni Kaplan, 1997 (Anura: Dendrobatidae) from Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia. Journal of Threatened Taxa 3(3): 1633-1636. Copyright: © José F. González-Maya, Mauricio González, Diego ZárrateCharry, Fidela Charry, Amancay A. Cepeda & Sergio A. Balaguera-Reina 2011. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 UnportedLicense. JoTT allows unrestricted use of this article in any medium for non-profit purposes, reproduction and distribution by providing adequate credit to the authors and the source of publication. Acknowledgements: We would like to thank David Zárrate and Neftali Zapata for their support; Cristian Cruz, Luisa Larrotta, Alexandra Pineda, Adriana Acero and Ronald Castellanos for their participation inthe I Námaku expedition; and Professor Renjifo for his assistance. OPEN ACCESS | FREE DOWNLOAD

are represented globally by 12 genera with 174 species (Frost 2010), 66 of which (9 genera) are recorded in Colombia (IUCN 2010). The genus Colostethus (dart frogs) is one of the largest genera in the family, represented by 21 species globally, 17 of them occurring in the country (IUCN 2010). Thirtypercent of all amphibian species of the country (213 species) are considered to be in a threat category as defined by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (IUCN 2010), 17 of them within the Dendrobatidae family and two in the genus Colostethus, with a major concentration of threatened species in the Andean region (IUCN 2010). Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (SNSM) is an isolated mountain rangelocated north of the Andes in the Caribbean region of Colombia. It has a high concentration of endemic species, consistent with the Pleistocene refuges theory which invokes fragmentation of ranges and temporal isolation allowing speciation to occur (Hernández-Camacho et al. 1992). SNSM, with its unique geographic location as the highest coastal mountain range in the world, represents a criticalecoregion in terms of high endemic values (Carbonó 2001). The SNSM was established as a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 1979 (López-Londoño et al. 2008), and classified as an Endemic Bird Area (EBA 36; BirdLife International 2003). It also includes several Important Bird Areas (Franco et al. 2009), and possesses one Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE) site, since there are nine threatened species (six...