Habitat Restoration for Endemic Lizards in an Oilfield in Payunia, Argentina

Fossil fuel extraction is an anthropogenic activity that completely modifies habitats at the local scale. Indirect impacts include human expansion into wild areas, introduction of invasive species and pathogens, soil erosion, water pollution, and illegal hunting (Butt et al. 2013). These environmental hazards become more problematic for biodiversity when exploitation takes place in areas with high conservation value. Oil and gas extraction sometimes occur within protected areas in the Neotropics (Suárez et al. 2009), and this is the case for two-thirds of the protected areas under provincial jurisdiction in Neuquén, Argentina (Fiori and Zalba 2003). One example of competition for land uses is the Auca Mahuida Nature Reserve, located in the Payunia region, Neuquén. In Payunia, the landscape, glaciation cycles, and pronounced climate changes resulted in the occurrence of a hot spot for reptile diversification (Martinez et al. 2011). The Auca Mahuida Nature Reserve is characterized by a high richness of lizards and the existence of several endemic taxa (Corbalán and Debandi 2008, Avila et al. 2015) with different degrees of habitat specialization and conservation concern (Abdala et al. 2012).

Habitat restoration for reptiles has been evaluated in different types of degraded ecosystems, and these studies highlighted the importance of microhabitat characteristics (Kanowski et al. 2006, Bateman et al. 2008, Perry et al. 2009) as well as connectivity with source populations (Kanowski et al. 2006) to ensure colonization success. When restored patches occur within a matrix where the reference ecosystem prevails, as in the case of oilfields, the resulting matrix is permeable, and it contains the source populations necessary for colonization. Therefore, microhabitat characteristics are the primary determinant of reptile assemblages in restoration sites, and landscape attributes only have a minimal effect (Triska et al. 2016). There are examples of restoration activities in the Payunia region, which are focused on the recovery of native vegetation and topography (Pérez et al. 2013, Martínez Carretero and Dalmasso 2015). However, to our knowledge, there are no previous studies related to habitat restoration that target any lizard species or rock environments. Our objective was to assess the effectiveness of constructed rock shelters to serve as refuges for the endemic lizard assemblage in an oilfield in Payunia.

Figure 1.

Lizards observed at restoration sites: A) adult individual of L. crandalli, B) adult individual of P. sitesi, C) adult female of P. roigorum and D) adult male of L. sitesi.

Payunia is a large volcanic field located in north-eastern Neuquén, Argentina, between 33°30' and 38° S. This study was conducted in the Auca Mahuida Nature Reserve, a protected area of 77,020 ha located on the southern border of the Payunia region (Llambías et al. 2010). Auca Mahuida landscape is composed of rocky outcrops and hills, shrublands, and grasslands with distinctive elements from the Payunia phytogeographic province (Martínez Carretero 2004). Lizards taxa endemic in the Payunia region are Liolaemus austromendocinus, Diplolaemus leopardinus (Victoriano et al. 2010) and Phymaturus roigorum (Figure 1) (Lobo and Abdala 2007). The endemic taxa in the Auca Mahuida range are Liolaemus cyaneinotatus, which is mostly recorded on bushes and rock edges (Martinez et al. 2011), Liolaemus sitesi, associated with grasslands and found underneath stones, Liolaemus crandalli (Avila et al. 2015) and Phymaturus sitesi (Avila et al. 2011) (Figure 1). The rock-dwelling lizard assemblage includes L. austromendocinus, L. crandalli, P. roigorum, P. sitesi, and D. leopardinus. P. sitesi and P. roigorum are large-bodied viviparous and herbivorous species (Avila et al. 2011) that occupy outcrops of an appropriate size and thin crevices generated by freeze-thaw activity in boulder rocks (Alvarez and Gizzi 2016). These lizards have a prolonged reproductive cycle characterized by low fecundity, reduced reproductive frequency, and limited annual reproductive output (Ibargüengoytía 2004, Boretto et al. 2007, Boretto and Ibargüengoytía 2009). Diplolaemus leopardinus is a large predator with a restricted distribution of fewer than 20,000 km² (Victoriano et al. 2010). All these taxa have a vulnerable conservation status in Argentina because...