An Approach to the Ecology of the Herpetofauna in Agroecosystems of the

Colombian Coffee Zone

Author(s): Julio Mario Hoyos-Hoyos, Paola Isaacs-Cubides, Nathalie Devia, Diana Maria Galindo-
Uribe and Andrés Rymel Acosta-Galvis
Source: South American Journal of Herpetology, 7(1):25-34. 2012.
Published By: Brazilian Society of Herpetology
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2994/057.007.0103
URL: http://www.bioone.org/doi/full/10.2994/057.007.0103

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South American Journal of Herpetology, 7(1), 2012, 25-34
© 2012 Brazilian Society of Herpetology

AN APPROACH TO THE ECOLOGY OF THE HERPETOFAUNA IN

AGROECOSYSTEMS OF THE COLOMBIAN COFFEE ZONE
JULIO MARIO HOYOS-HOYOS1,4, PAOLA ISAACS-CUBIDES1, NATHALIE DEVIA2,
DIANA MARIA GALINDO-URIBE3, AND ANDRÉS RYMEL ACOSTA-GALVIS1

1. Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Departamento de Biología, Unidad de Ecología y Sistemática (UNESIS), A.A. 56710,
Bogotá, Colombia. E-mails: jmhoyos@javeriana.edu.co, paola.isaacs@gmail.com, andres.acosta@javeriana.edu.co
2. Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Instituto de Ciencias Naturales,
Ciudad Universitaria Calle 30 Carrera 45, Bogotá, Colombia. E-mail: devialogia@gmail.com
3. Grupo de Ecofisiología, Comportamiento y Herpetología. Facultad de Ciencias, Departamento de Ciencias Biológicas.
Universidad de Los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia. E-mail: dm.galindo48@uniandes.edu.co
4. Corresponding author.

ABSTRACT. To establish the presence of amphibian and reptile species by cover and their diet in agroecosystems in the Colombian
coffee belt, we sampled four farms in the Departamento del Quindío and two in the Departamento del Valle del Cauca (Colombia)
from 2006 to 2008. Specimens were captured using both the VES technique and manual capture; each gastrointestinal sample was
analyzed to get the type of diet (carnivore, omnivore or herbivore) and the frequency of consumed items (detritus, animal parts,
plant material and minerals). Both the sensitivity index (IS) and the dominance index were calculated to find out whether each spe-
cies belongs to open areas or forest, and to determine niche breadth. Differences between stomach and intestine were analyzed by
using a Chi-square test. We captured 376 individuals of 19 species (nine frogs, three lizards, six snakes and one turtle) in crops, pas-
tures, forests and forest of Guadua angustifolia. Centrolenid frogs were found mainly in forests and Guadua, and Rhinella marina,
Leptodactylus colombiensis, Lithobates catesbeianus, two species of snakes and a turtle, in open areas. Gastrointestinal contents
showed that most of the species are carnivorous. This paper is the first report of the diet of these species in Colombia especially in
agroecosystems, being important to compare differences due to habitat transformation.

KEYWORDS. diet type, herpetofauna, coffee belt, agroecosystems.

INTRODUCTION on native species on the edge of patches, because both

Fragmentation of habitats and their consequent
loss caused by human actions, is considered by many
biologists as the greatest current threat to biodiver-
sity. This process reduces total habitat available and
landscape connectivity, affecting the habitat quality
of species and isolating populations, making them
more vulnerable to extinction (Murcia 1995).
The Colombian coffee belt is a region of trans-
formed and fragmented landscapes owing to the
diversity of productive systems, where the forest is
surrounded by an agricultural matrix, or restricted
to isolated remnants where extensive crops occur
(CARDER 2004).
Agriculture in the coffee belt produces deleterious
effects owing to area fragmentation, and increases
the vulnerability associated with genetic uniformity
of monoculture.
Therefore, knowledge about how organisms inter-
act in agricultural ecosystems is important for both
integrated management programs and sustainable ag-
riculture (Peltzer et al. 2004).
Some important effects of fragmentation are per-
ceived at the level of community ecological process-
es: it increases competition, parasitism and predation
tolerant and opportunistic species of the matrix colo-
nize new areas (Murcia 2002). In addition, herbivory
increases causing a low survival rate, fecundity or
growth of plant communities (Murcia 2002). In fact,
when the number of individuals decreases, ecological
services (SE) such as pollination, dispersal and preda-
tion will also decrease, causing a major fluctuation of
individuals that may produce decline and even extinc-
tion of species populations (Murcia 2002). Changes
in biotic and abiotic factors may have an effect on
predation activities of species making the presence of
opportunistic and tolerant species easier and driving
sensitive species to extinction, or may even promote
a reaction chain inside the communities that could
alter the ecosystem balance (Murcia 2002). Habitat
destruction could alter most species but not influence
equally all species (Pineda et al. 2008), and their vul-
nerability depends on reproductive mode, foraging
strategy, body size (Duellman and Trueb 1994) and
diet breadth (Suazo-Ortuño et al. 2008).
One of the important aspects that could be af-
fected by habitat loss is feeding habits; this includes
behavioral, physiological and morphological charac-
ters that are important in population dynamics of spe-
cies and that will determine the interactions between
26 Ecology of the Herpetofauna in Colombian Coffee Zone
competitors and other upper trophic levels (Hirai and
Matsui 2002, Lima and Magnusson 2002). Informa-
tion on the diet of amphibians and reptiles is impor-
tant to understand how herpetofaunal interactions af-
fect the community (Hirai and Matsui 2002). Study
on the diet of Colombia herpetofauna are scarce (e.g.,
Daza-Vaca and Castro-Herrera 1999, Botero-Trujillo
2006, Muñoz-Guerrero et al. 2009), even more in
productive systems. For that reason, the aims of this
paper are to establish the presence of amphibian and
reptile species in a forest of Guadua angustifolia, a
riparian remnant forest, crops, grasses and human set-
tlings, and to study their diet as possibly representing
a more general situation in the agroecosystems of the
Colombian coffee belt.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Area of Study: The present study was carried out
in the Colombian coffee belt in the departamentos
(Provinces) of Quindío and Valle del Cauca, which
are characterized by a history of interventions to the
original native vegetation by the introduction of live-
stock and agriculture, which has reduced the natural
cover to areas of Guadua angustifolia to preserve the
water resources and some patches of remnant vegeta-
tion, which still maintain the biodiversity of the re-
gion (IGAC 1996).
Four farms were visited in Quindío: La Ramada
(in June of 2006 and April of 2008) (04°34’97.7”N,
75°49’89.6”W; 1200 m), La Floresta (in November
of 2006, in June of 2006 and of 2007) (04°35’70.6”N,
75°50’13.4”; 1180 m), Tesalia Baja (in September
of 2006 and in November of 2007) (04°35’0.85”N,
75°40’0.12”W; 1620 m) and Lusitania (in June of
2007) (04°41’50.2”N, 75°50’0.52”W; 1200 m),
and we visited two farms in the Valle del Cauca: La
Comarca (in September of 2006) (04°41’45.4”N,
75°46’19.9”W; 1230 m) and El Topacio (in April of
2008) (04°40’24”N, 75°43’60”W; 1560 m). Each
farm consists of a mosaic of productive systems based
mainly on coffee, banana, and pastures for livestock,
with riparian forest of Guadua angustifolia, second-
ary forest and some remnants of original forest that
still maintain some of the ecological characteristics
for the fauna and the flora.
The Colombian coffee belt region is influenced by
the intertropical convergence zone, by the mountain
relief (influenced by both the humid air of the cordil-
lera Occidental and the Cauca river basin) and by the
atmospheric circulation (IGAC 1996). It presents a
bimodal precipitation regime with values lower than
1800mm per year, and with humid periods extending
from March to May, and from September to Novem-
ber; the dry season occurs from January to February
and from June to August. The average temperature is
between 18°C and 21°C (IGAC 1996). The rainiest
period occurs from April to May and from October to
November (IGAC 1996).
Methodology: We used the Visual Encounter Survey
method (VES, Crump and Scott 1994) to sample all
the different covers present in the farms (G. angusti-
folia, forest, crops, grasses and around the houses).
Given the logistic difficulties, the surveys were not
always carried out by the same number of people in
the same months of each year; for that reason, we
have an average of 210 hours/people, taking into ac-
count that every survey was carried out by at least
two people.
The observed individuals were collected by manu-
al capture method, deposited in a plastic bag and sac-
rificed following the ethic protocols using a saturated
solution of chloretone and ethanol in water (Angulo
et al. 2006). We did not use stomach flushing given
the small size of some frogs. They were fixed inject-
ing formalin 10% in several points of the ventral re-
gion (Heyer et al. 1994, Acosta 2002a) to avoid prey
decomposition; then, they were maintained in a humid
camera dampened with 10% formalin for eight hours.
Finally, the samples were preserved in 70% ethanol,
and were deposited in the Museo de Historia Natural
de la Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (MUJ).
We made a lateral cut in the left flank of the pre-
served specimens, from the armpit to the groin; then,
both the stomach and the whole intestine were cut
laterally, including the cloaca, and the contents was
preserved in 70% ethanol, preferring this method be-
cause major data can be obtained (Parmelee 1999,
Guayasamin et al. 2004).
For both the gastrointestinal content and feces
analysis, we used the occurrence method proposed
in ichthyological studies by Hyslop (1980), which
registers, in frequency terms, the number of stom-
achs and intestines that contain individuals or items
of a determined category (in our case invertebrates,
detritus, plant material and minerals). This method
is commonly used because it allows to obtain, in an
easy and simple way, a quick qualitative vision of the
individual nutritional spectrum for categorical data
(Hyslop 1980). The preys were determined to the
smallest possible taxonomic category and the other
types of material were classified as detritus, plant
 Hoyos-Hoyos, J. M. et al.
material and/or mineral. In the same way, to deter-
mine the type of diet (carnivorous, omnivorous or
herbivorous), the content of the sample was placed
in a Petri dish with a millimetric sheet adhered to the
bottom to calculate the percentage occupied by the
category. The contents were grouped, and the number
of free squares were counted, in order to calculate the
percentage occupied. This article is part of a mega
project framed by an Excellence Center of Research
“Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios en Biodiver-
sidad y Recursos Genéticos (CIEBREG)”. We were
given permission by the Ministry of Environment to
collect and sacrifice specimens, and it was approved
by the Bioethics Committee of the Pontificia Univer-
sidad Javeriana. Both collection and sacrifice permis-
sion and approval was general and not individual.
Data Analyses: To establish if the species found be-
longed to open or forest areas, we used the Sensibility
Index (IS) proposed by Pineda and coworkers (2008)
and calculated according to the following equation:
where: H1 is the number of captured individuals in
habitat one (open areas) and H2 the number of cap-
tured individuals in the comparison habitat (forest).
The index goes from values of -1 to 1, being -1 an
indicator of low sensibility, 0 neutrality, and 1 high
sensibility (Pineda et al. 2008). In this case, the open
areas include crops, grasses and the surroundings
of the houses and the forest areas of G. angustifolia
(G. angustifolia – forest, forest).
According to the diet found in gastrointestinal
contents, the presence of the different items was ex-
pressed in frequency of occurrence by category (Hys-
lop 1980). We used a Chi-square test to show differ-
ences between stomach and intestine (Zar 1999). The
diet type was classified using the percentage of data,
following Cooper and Vitt (2002) in which a species
is considered omnivorous if at least 10% of its diet
is plant material, and carnivorous or herbivorous, if
it contains 90% or more of animals or plant material
respectively. This classification could be considered
as arbitrary, but it allows one to exclude the acciden-
tal consumption of plant material for the case of the
carnivores (Cooper and Vitt 2002). To estimate the
trophic niche breadth and to determine if the diet type
is generalist or specialist (Pianka 1973), the recipro-
cal dominance of Simpson index was calculated (B),
following the equation:
27
Where: Pi is the proportional use of the resource i
(orders) and n is the total number of categories (to-
tal orders). The value varies from 1 (exclusive use of
single prey type), to n (all prey types used equally,
Pianka 1973).
RESULTS
We captured a total of 376 individuals belonging
to 19 species in the area: nine species of frogs, three
of lizards, six of snakes and one of turtle. Snakes, the
turtle and the lizard Basiliscus galeritus, were not in-
cluded in the analysis of diet, because we only cap-
tured one specimen of each species (Table 1).
According to the different vegetation covers
present in the area, 66% of amphibians and reptiles
were caught in open areas (crops, grasses, around
the houses) and 34% in forest areas (G. angustifolia,
G. angustifolia – forest, forest). The percentage of
the specimens captured in open areas was as follows:
52% in grassland, 13% surrounding houses, and 1%
in crops (Fig. 1), and in forests: 16% were captured
in G. angustifolia, 10% in forest and 8% in forest–
G. angustifolia. In terms of richness, covers that pre-
sented the greatest number of species were grasses
(13 species) and G. angustifolia with eight species
(Fig. 1).
Taking into account the IS values, centrolenids,
B. galeritus, Chironius monticola, Imantodes cen-
choa, Leptodeira annulata and Sibon nebulatu
showed values of 1; on the other hand, R. marina,
L. colombiensis, L. catesbeianus, the snakes Eryth-
rolamprus bizona, Leptophis depressirostris and the
turtle Chelydra serpentina showed an IS of -1. D. co-
lumbianus, C. fraterdanieli and A. auratus had values
close to -1; A. antonii, and the species of the Pris-
timantis genus, were found in both open and forest
areas (Table 1).
With regard to the analysis of the diet, the Chi-
square test showed that there are no significant differ-
ences among species between stomach and intestine
contents (Table 2).
The most abundant prey categories were Cole-
opterans, Hymenoptera, Hemiptera, Arachnidae and
Diptera, being Coleoptera the one with the high-
est values of abundance. We also found 44 contents
with nematodes, 115 with minerals and 129 with
plant material (Fig. 2). The species were categorized
28 Ecology of the Herpetofauna in Colombian Coffee Zone

TABLE 1. Species of frogs and reptiles found in agroecosystems of the Colombian coffee belt.

Family Species n Hábitat* IS index

Hylidae Dendropsophus columbianus 146 A, OA -0,71
Bufonidae Rhinella marina 48 OA -1,00
Strabomantidae Pristimantis achatinus 81 F, OA 0,31
Pristimantis palmeri 12 F 0,83
Dendrobatidae Colostethus fraterdanieli 14 L -0,71
Centrolenidae Centrolene prosoblepon 15 F 1,00
Hyalinobatrachium colymbiphyllum 12 F 1,00
Leptodactylidae Leptodactylus colombiensis 2 OA -1,00
Ranidae Lithobates catesbeianus 1 OA -1,00
Polychrotidae Anolis antonii 30 OA, F 0,53
Anolis auratus 6 OA, F -0,67
Corytophanidae Basiliscus galeritus 1 F 1,00
Colubridae Chironius monticola 1 F 1,00
Erythrolamprus bizona 1 OA, F -1,00
Imantodes cenchoa 1 F 1,00
Leptodeira annulata 1 F, OA 1,00
Leptophis depressirostris 1 F -1,00
Sibon nebulatus 1 OA, F 1,00
Chelydridae Chelydra serpentina 1 A -1,00

* (A: aquatic; OA: open areas; F: forest; L: litter; H: houses).

as carnivores, although D. columbianus presented a
high frequency of plant material as well as minerals.
We took the three most frequent categories and val-
ues of the S index to determine the dietary preference
of the species (see prey consumed and S in Table 2):
C. fraterdanielli and P. achatinus presented low val-
ues, although the spectrum of prey consumed varied
from seven to 17 Orders for the most abundant ones.
The anoles and D. columbianus showed high values
related to the number of Orders present in their diet
(Table 3), and D. columbianus was the species with
the highest number of Orders consumed (n = 17).
Colostethus fraterdanielli was found in the litter
where it is very difficult to see, we only observed

FIGURE 1. Abundance and richness of species per cover sampled (Guadual = Guadua angustifolia).
 Hoyos-Hoyos, J. M. et al. 29

TABLE 2. Diet of the anurans and reptiles obtained from the gastrointestinal contents.

Frequency
Percentage Prop. Prey consumed
Stomach Intestine Feces
Species n Chi/D.f.
No
Freq % Freq. % Freq. % % pre. % det. % p.m. Type S 1 2 3
orders
Dc 146 111 32 215 63 16 5 11.2/13 66.3 32.4 1.24 C 5.99 14 CO HE AR
Pa 81 102 41 136 55 9 4 21.5/13 83 15.7 1.25 C 4.97 14 CO HY HE
Pp 12 21 58 12 33 3 8,3 4.27/6 80 20 0 C 5.55 7 HY HE AR
Cf 14 37 52 33 46 1 1,4 3.64/6 100 0 0 C 2.9 7 HY CO DI
Cp 15 8 31 14 54 4 15 — 70 30 0 C — 3 AR DI AC
Hc 11 6 30 12 60 2 10 — 50 50 0 C — 4 HY CO DI
Lc 2 7 77 2 23 — — — 100 0 0 C — 3 HE CO AR
Lca 1 — — — — — — — 100 0 0 C — 3 HY OR HE
Aa 31 31 26 39 33 49 41 5.17/10 100 0 0 C 6.46 11 CO AR HY
Aau 6 3 20 5 33 7 46 3.75/5 100 0 0 C 5.33 6 HY AR —

* (Dc: Dendropsophus columbianus, Pa: Pristimantis achatinus, Pp: Pristimantis palmeri, Cf: Colostethus fraterdanielli, Cp: Centrolene
prosoblepon, Hc: Hyalinobatrachium fleischmanni, Lc: Leptodactylus colombiensis, Lca: Lithobates catesbeianus, Aa: Anolis antonii,
Aau: Anolis auratus. Pre: prey, Det: detritus, P.M.: plant material, Type O: omnivorus, C: carnivorus, Prop.: proportion, S: Simpson index.
Prey consumed, CO: Coleoptera, HY: Hymenoptera, HE: Hemiptera, AR: Araneae, DI: Diptera, AC: Acari).

FIGURE 2. Frequencies of categories found in both the gastrointestinal tracts and feces as a whole.
30 Ecology of the Herpetofauna in Colombian Coffee Zone

TABLE 3. List of frequency of categories found by species.

Species Aa Aau Dc Pa Pp Cf Cp Hf Lc Lca TOTAL

Categories 12 5 15 13 7 7 4 5 5 4
Coleoptera 24 1 43 35 2 7 1 2 3 0 193
Hymenoptera 13 2 27 35 5 25 0 2 0 3 187
Hemiptera 12 0 40 14 4 3 0 1 5 1 97
Araneae 15 2 38 14 3 3 3 0 1 0 88
Diptera 6 1 18 6 0 5 1 2 0 0 42
Lepidoptera 10 0 9 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 33
Orthoptera 4 1 7 2 3 0 0 0 0 1 21
Acari 2 0 2 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 13
Chilopoda 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 4
Dermaptera 3 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5
Odonata 0 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3
Diplopoda 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 2
Gastropoda 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 3
Collembola 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2
Dictioptera 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 4
Crustacea 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2
Collembola 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 3
Psocoptera 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2
Blattodea 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2
Myriapoda 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2
Isoptera 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
Pseudoescorpion 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
Nematoda 3 1 11 9 1 3 1 0 1 0 44
Plant material 4 2 42 30 2 5 4 4 0 2 129
Minerals 3 0 32 38 5 7 1 0 1 0 115
Detritus 18 1 66 49 9 10 7 6 0 0 201

* (Aa: Anolis antonii, Aau: Anolis auratus, Dc: Dendropsophus columbianus, Pa: Pristimantis achatinus, Pp: Pistimantis palmeri, Cf:
Colostethus fraterdanielli, Cp: Centrolene prosoblepon, Hc: Hyalinobatrachium fleischmanni, Lc: Leptodactylus colombiensis, Lca:
Lithobates catesbeianus).

them in the pasture once, for that reason the sensi-
tivity index was skewed toward open areas, although
they were heard vocalizing in forests and G. angusti-
folia. On the other hand, Anolis antonii preferred for-
est areas and A. auratus open areas.
It is important to remark that Lithobates cates-
beianus, of which we only captured one specimen,
had in its gastrointestinal content fragments of He-
miptera, Orthoptera and Hymenoptera; in this last
case we found a queen ant of the species Ectatoma
tuberculatum.
The gastrointestinal contents by cover did not vary
and maintained the trend of prey consumption of the
Orders Coleoptera, Hymenoptera, Hemiptera and
Araneae (Fig. 3), finding for both grassland and areas
around the houses higher values for D. columbianus
than for the other species, given that these species are
abundant and live nearly exclusively in these areas.
Instead, data are very limited in both crops and forest-
guaduales due to the low number of individuals found
in these covers.
DISCUSSION
According to our findings, most of the herpeto-
fauna were found in open areas, being the grassland
the most representative (52% of the samples) in terms
of abundance and richness.
Taking into account the IS values, centrolenids,
B. galeritus, Chironius monticola, Imantodes cen-
choa, Leptodeira annulata and Sibon nebulatu were
exclusive to the forest. Rhinella marina, L. colom-
biensis, L. catesbeianus, the snakes Erythrolam-
prus bizona, Leptophis depressirostris and the turtle
Chelydra serpentina were exclusive to open areas.
A. antonii, and the species of the Pristimantis ge-
nus, could be found in both open and forest areas
(Table 1).
Our results support other studies (Acosta, 2002a)
showing that D. columbianus is a species widely tol-
erant to intervention, living in degraded areas, and
that might eventually be found in edges of forests, but
is less abundant than in water bodies of open areas.
 Hoyos-Hoyos, J. M. et al. 31

FIGURE 3. Prey frequencies per species found in the gastrointestinal tract. We only show those for the most common Orders.

The two species of centrolenids and P. palmeri, are
species of forests. P. palmeri is a species that has been
reported in secondary forests, seldom surpassing the
edges of forests (Acosta 2002b). Given that centrolenids
require oxygenated water to lay their eggs, they need
forest covers where conditions are more stable and the
water is less polluted. P. achatinus prefers forests, but it
could also be found in open areas, being the only one in
crops, confirming the generalistic nature of this species.
This paper is the first one to report the type of diet
of species in agroecosystems on the Colombian cof-
fee belt, showing that most of them feed on arthro-
pods, consuming a wide range of prey. There have not
been studies of frogs and reptiles diet of D. colum-
bianus, P. achatinus, C. fraterdanielli and A. antonii
despite that these are the most abundant and common
species in this region.
We would rather use the frequency (defined as
a measure of the number of times that a particular
prey or item occurs in predatory species; Hyslop
1980, Parmelee 1999, Zar 1999) to describe species
diet, because it is more conservative in the infor-
mation that it shows, considering that the digestive
processes fragment individuals in parts at different
rates depending on the type of prey, hindering the
calculation of the abundance and real volume (Zug
1993).
P. achatinus presented a tendency to have a pref-
erential diet, as demonstrated by the low values ob-
tained by the dominance index (see Table 2) with
respect to the number of orders obtained from their
gastrointestinal tracts; however, the spectrum of prey
consumed by all species is wide showing preference
for coleopterans and hymenopterans.
32 Ecology of the Herpetofauna in Colombian Coffee Zone
Muñoz et al. (2007) reported the orders Orthop-
tera, Arachnida, Coleoptera, Hymenoptera and Dip-
tera as the most common and frequent in the stomach
contents of Dendropsophus microcephalus, Scarthyla
vigilans, Hypsiboas pugnax and Scinax rostratus and,
to a lesser extent, Blatteridae, Isoptera, Hemiptera
and Lepidoptera. While we did not find isopterans,
the orthopterans were the most abundant and, addi-
tionally, we extracted mites, crustaceans, psocopter-
ans and Collembola. We found families of hemipter-
ans, spiders and flies in D. columbianus that were not
found in other anurans, nevertheless the greater pro-
portion of prey found corresponds to himenopterans
and spiders like those reported in other studies for the
family Hylidae (Daza-Vaca and Castro-Herrera 1999,
Parmelee 1999, Menéndez 2001). This shows that the
greatest quantity of prey of a certain type will have an
aquatic habit (Parmelee 1999), which is in agreement
with the habitat preferred by this species.
We may say that P. achatinus has preferences
related to habitat types (forests), because it con-
sumes few flies but a lot of ants of different families,
while we were able to recognize that P. palmeri and
C. fraterdanielli prefer to live closest to the ground
level because we found myriapods in their gastroin-
testinal system.
The largest proportion of prey eaten by Pristi-
mantis (as a genus) corresponds to beetles and hy-
menopterans, as reported in other studies (Parmelee
1999 and references therein, Lima and Magnusson
2002, Guayasamin et al. 2004), but in species of
this genus in the Amazonian Cuzco, most of their
diet consists of beetles and orthopterans (Parmelee
1999), contrasting with our results in which we did
not find orthopterans but hemipterans (ranked fourth
in frequency).
Comparing dendrobatid (sensu lato) species, we
see that C. fraterdanielli is specialized in hymenopter-
ans (Table 3), as has been shown for C. marchesianus
in Ecuador. Although its diet consists of collembo-
lans, mites and beetles too, the same species in the
Peruvian Amazon consumes ants and mites (Toft
1980).
Since our report is the first known about the diet of
the centrolenid species C. prosoblepon (spiders and
beetles) and H. colymbiphylum (beetles and flies), we
were not able to compare it with other studies about
this family, but we can notice that their feeding habits
are not very different from those of the other species
described above.
It is worth noting the presence of a queen ant of
the species Ectatoma tuberculatum in Lithobates
catesbeianus (bull frog), being important because
L. catesbeianus is an introduced species, using the
prey in a different way than the native species. Simi-
larly, it is important to mention the presence of plant
material in gastrointestinal contents, because it can be
considered accidental (Zug and Zug 1979, Zug 1993),
and maybe the presence of plant material helps elimi-
nate intestinal parasites, providing fibers to help to
crush hard parts as those of coleopterans, and contrib-
utes as an additional water source during periods of
drought (Anderson et al. 1999).
For those items identified to genus and species
(beetles and hymenopterans), we observed differ-
ences between the composition of prey consumed
in the forest and in open areas, apparently because
the offer is different. This makes it difficult to know
whether the herpetofauna has a preference for eating
specimens of a specific family or genus of arthropods.
However, the work with gastrointestinal contents
could be biased given that the size and biomass of
beetles and hymenopterans may exceed that of other
animals (Parmelee 1999, Menéndez 2001).
Our findings about the two species of Anolis (an-
tonii and auratus) are the first ones reported in the lit-
erature, given that only the diets of Anolis oculatus in
Dominica, and Anolis capito in Nicaragua have been
reported (Vitt and Zani 2005). Our species presented
a high number of items of spiders, lepidopterans, bee-
tles and Hymenoptera, while A. oculatus consumes
crickets and A. capito prefers crickets, homopterans,
larvae, cockroaches, beetles and Diplopoda, eating a
low number of prey, mostly of large size.
We found species that prefer open areas or forests
in agroecosystems with a diet type mostly carnivo-
rous biased towards coleopterans, himenopterans and
hemipterans. We can conclude also that the diversity
of amphibians and reptiles in the coffee belt is very
low, although certain species remain due to the inter-
vention of the agroecosystem. The species are highly
specialized in this agroecosystem, preferring cole-
opterans, hemipterans, hymenopterans and Araneae;
however, thess preferences are probably due to the
higher availabilty of these taxa, although more stud-
ies are necessary to reach this conclusion (Duellman
and Trueb 1994).
Finally, additional work should be done taking
into account both weight and volume of gastrointesti-
nal contents, to determine more accurately which are
the most abundant items (number and biomass), and
diet preference, and identifying arthropods in agro-
ecosystems and their relationship with both frog and
lizard preferences.
 Hoyos-Hoyos, J. M. et al.
RESUMEN
Dieta de la herpetofauna presente en el eje cafete-
ro colombiano. Se determinó presencia por cobertura
y el tipo de dieta de la herpetofauna en los agroecosis-
temas en el eje cafetero colombiano. Se visitaron cua-
tro fincas, dos en el Quindío y dos en el Valle del Cau-
ca, del año 2006 al 2008. Se capturó manualmente
la herpetofauna observada por medio de las técnicas
VES; se analizó el contenido gastrointestinal para de-
terminar el tipo de dieta (carnívoro, omnívoro o her-
bívoro) y la frecuencia de ítems consumidos (detritos,
material vegetal, partes de animales y minerales). Se
calcularon el índice de sensibilidad (IS), para deter-
minar si cada especie es de zonas abiertas o de bosque
y el índice de dominancia para determinar amplitud
de nicho. Se analizaron diferencias entre estómago
e intestino por medio de una prueba Chi-cuadrado.
Se capturaron 376 individuos de 19 especies (nueve
de ranas, tres de lagartos, seis de serpientes y una de
tortuga), en cultivos, pastos, bosques y “guaduales”.
Los centrolénidos son exclusivos de bosque, y de zo-
nas abiertas Leptodactylus colombiensis, Lithobates
catesbeianus, dos especies de serpientes y la tortuga.
Se determinó que la carnivoría es el tipo más común
de dieta, con un consumo de coleópteros e himenóp-
teros. Este es el primer reporte sobre la dieta de estas
especies en el país especialmente en agroecosistemas,
siendo un reporte importante para comparar diferen-
cias debidas a la transformación del hábitat.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We want to thank everybody in the farms that gave us fa-
cilities to work there; to Sergio Moreno for helping us in both
the gastrointestinal analysis, and in the field; to Lina Parada, Fer-
nanda Cantillo, Cristina Cepeda and Carolina Piedrahita for their
help in the field. Likewise, to J. Parmelee, L. Vitt, P. Taylor and
J. Caldwell for their personal comments. This paper is part of the
project “Valoración de bienes y servicios de la biodiversidad en el
eje cafetero: Complejo ecorregional Andes del Norte de Colom-
bia” carried out by the Excellence Center of Research “Centro de
Investigaciones y Estudios en Biodiversidad y Recursos Genéti-
cos (CIEBREG)” with the financial support of Colciencias and
the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana of Bogotá. We want to thank
the Ministerio del Medio Ambiente, Vivienda y Desarrollo Ter-
ritorial of Colombia for giving us collection authorization.
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Submitted: 18 February 2011
Accepted: 23 December 2011