L’utilizzo dei rifugi artificiali come valido metodo per monitorare l’erpetofauna alpina: il caso del Parco Nazionale dello Stelvio

Information on amphibians and reptiles of the Stelvio National Park are historically limited to a few studies that, since the ‘80s, show the distribution of some species and conservation issues related to wetlands. The herpetofauna survey in the Park is part of the larger “Monitoring of Animal Biodiversity in Alpine Environment”, long-term project launched in 2013, whose multiple purposes include, in addition to obtaining the presence and abundance data of individual species, the evaluation of the role of environmental factors in determining the distribution of animal biodiversity. Here we report the results of monitoring carried out in the 2014-2015 period, conducted either by active animal research along standardized transects, whether through artificial refuges (shelters) specifically placed in various areas of the Park, in order to verify the presence of reptiles and their distribution in relation to the altitude through the use of occupancy models.A total of 130 days in the field have been invested, by checking 88 shelters, each of which has been visited at least 8 times between May and September in both years. The use of artificial shelters allowed to implement the original database on reptiles of the Park, contributing over 30% to a total of 622 reports collected during this study. Excluding data on Podarcis muralis, often detected with good amounts without the help of artificial shelters, the percentage of observations rises to 53%, i.e. more than half of those collected in 2014-2015 biennium. Other species observed through the use of shelters were: Anguis veronensis, Vipera berus, Zootoca vivipara, Coronella austriaca, Natrix natrix, and Hierophis viridiflavus. Noteworthy is the presence of Lacerta bilineata, Zamenis longissimus, and Vipera aspis, species found exclusively through visual search.