Daily Movement and Microhabitat Use by the Blacksmith Treefrog Hypsiboas faber (Anura: Hylidae) During the Breeding Season in a Subtemperate Forest of Southern Brazil

We studied the patterns of daily movement and habitat use of 20 males and five females of the blacksmith treefrog, Hypsiboas faber, during the breeding season in a subtemperate forest of southern Brazil. Treefrogs were tracked with externally attached thread bobbins. There were no differences between sexes in the mean straight line distance moved (HSD) or in the effective distance moved (HDM), which ranged from 0.06-3.1 m/h and 0.4-9.8 m/h, respectively). Males showed higher site fidelity and less habitat overlap than females. Despite being an arboreal species, most of the tracked individuals used the herbaceous stratum on the ground as microhabitat, which indicates a particular microhabitat use during breeding activities. Estimates of the distance moved obtained from released thread lines revealed that animals moved distances five times greater than the distances calculated by drawing a straight line between consecutive points. Therefore, our findings suggest that the sedentary behavior attributed to some tropical and subtropical anuran species in tropical and subtropical anuran species forests might not be accurate.