Herpetofaunal community response to hurricanes Irma and Maria in Virgin Islands National Park

Abstract

AbstractDisturbances are critical for maintaining environmental heterogeneity and biodiversity across landscapes. Hurricanes represent a common disturbance in the Caribbean Sea. These storms are predicted to become more frequent and severe as climate shifts. Understanding how island communities respond to disturbances is critical to their conservation. We surveyed Virgin Islands National Park located on the island of St. John in the Caribbean Sea in 2016 and 2018 to evaluate prolonged herpetofauna community response and resistance to hurricanes. These surveys occurred in March 2016, and June 2018, before and after the 2017 hurricane season, when hurricanes Irma and Maria struck St. John. Using visual encounter surveys, vocalisation surveys, and opportunistic encounters, we surveyed trails within the park through five landscape cover types pre- and post-hurricane. We used linear regression to determine differences in diversity and species richness among landscape cover types and between pre- and post-hurricane surveys and non-metric multidimensional scaling to observe associations among species and landscape cover types pre- and post-hurricane surveys. We determined that there were no significant changes in landscape cover and herpetofauna community associations before and after the 2017 hurricane season, indicating that the herpetofauna communities of Virgin Islands National Park are well adapted to hurricane-related disturbance.