Frog communities from five remnants of sandy coastal plains in Espírito Santo state, southeastern Brazil Jane C. F. Oliveira 1 & Juliane Pereira-Ribeiro 1 & Arthur Favalessa 2 & Carlos Frederico D. Rocha 1 Received: 26 July 2017 /Revised: 25 September 2019 /Accepted: 4 December 2019 # Springer Nature B.V. 2020 Abstract Restingas are sandy coastal plains environments belonging to the atlantic forest biome. This ecosystem holds considerable amount of the anuran biodiversity of Brazil. However, there are still important remnants not yet sampled in its entirety (studies of anuran communities). In this study, we inventory and compared the richness and abundance of anuran species occurring in five restinga remnants along the southeastern coast of Espírito Santo state. We sampled amphibians at each site over a three-year period (2012, 2013 and 2014), during both rainy and dry seasons. We used Whittaker plots to analyze the observed pattern of species abundance. We recorded 3.376 anurans belonging to 32 frog species, two of these endemic of restinga ecosystem. This study fills an important geographic gap in terms of knowledge of frog communities’ richness and abundance along Brazilian coast. Keywords Amphibians . Atlantic forest biome . Restinga ecosystem . Community . Mesohabitats Introduction Restingas are sandy coastal plains formations occurring along 8000 km of the Brazilian coast (Cerqueira 2000). These plains are characterized by relatively high temperature, low humidity and low availability of free-standing water sources in compar- ison with other Atlantic forest ecosystems (Rocha et al. 2003). Typically, sandy coastal plains are composed by different veg- etation types, which constitute a mosaic of mesohabitats (Pereira 1990; Araújo et al. 2004). These mesohabitats usually comprise sand dunes with halophilous vegetation, open Clusia formation (shrubs) with sandy soil exposed to the sun, restinga forest, and temporary or permanent swamps (e.g. Sugui and Tessler, 1984; Pereira 1990). This habitat het- erogeneity together with the individual historical and geo- graphical processes that acted along time at each locality, allowed the occurrence of a variety of different taxonomic groups, such as amphibians. Although restinga habitats holds significant portion of the biodiversity of Brazilian frogs, there are still many remnants of this ecosystem not properly investigated (see Oliveira and Rocha 2015 for a review). Additionally, frogs sampling are usually biased, focusing mainly in swamp areas of sandy coast- al plains (Bastazini et al. 2007; Oliveira and Rocha 2015). This lack of sampling resulting in low knowledge about anuran com- position in many areas is one of the main problems limiting a better construction of conservation programs (Silvano and Segalla 2005). Although an important literature on anuran in sandy coastal plains is available (e.g. Rocha et al. 2005; Bastazini et al. 2007; Rocha and Van Sluys 2007; Rocha et al. 2008; Colombo et al. 2008, Moreira et al. 2010; Oliveira et al. 2013, 2013, Oliveira et al. 2017) there is still a need of inven- tories regarding the anurofauna. Herein, our main purpose is to evaluate the composition of anuran communities in five sandy coastal plains remnants along the state of Espírito Santo, south- eastern Brazil, and also to identify which site (s) harbors higher values of richness, abundance and of endemic anuran species, considering all mesohabitats present in each site. Material and methods We sampled five sandy coastal plains (restinga ecosystem) along the coast of Espírito Santo state, southeastern Brazil * Jane C. F. Oliveira janeherpeto@gmail.com 1 Departamento de Ecologia, Instituto de Biologia Roberto de Alcantara Gomes, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Rua São Francisco Xavier 524, Maracanã, Rio de Janeiro 20550-019, Brazil 2 Faculdades Integradas São Pedro, FAESA Centro Universitário, Avenida Vitória 2220, Monte Belo, Vitória, Espírito Santow 29053360, Brazil Journal of Coastal Conservation (2020) 24:7 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11852-019-00720-z