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Protected areas are of paramount relevance to conserving wildlife and ecosystem contributions to people. Yet, their conservation success is increasingly threatened by human activities including habitat loss, climate change, pollution, and species overexploitation. Thus, understanding the underlying and proximate drivers of anthropogenic threats is urgently needed to improve protected areas' effectiveness, especially in the biodiversity-rich tropics. We addressed this issue by analyzing expert-provided data on long-term biodiversity change (last three decades) over 14 biosphere reserves from the Mesoamerican Biodiversity Hotspot. Using multivariate analyses and structural equation modeling, we tested the influence of major socioeconomic drivers (demographic, economic, and political factors), spatial indicators of human activities (agriculture expansion and road extension), and forest landscape modifications (forest loss and isolation) as drivers of biodiversity change. We uncovered a significant proliferation of disturbance-tolerant guilds and the loss or decline of disturbance-sensitive guilds within reserves causing a "winner and loser" species replacement over time. Guild change was directly related to forest spatial changes promoted by the expansion of agriculture and roads within reserves. High human population density and low nonfarming occupation were identified as the main underlying drivers of biodiversity change. Our findings suggest that to mitigate anthropogenic threats to biodiversity within biosphere reserves, fostering human population well-being via sustainable, nonfarming livelihood opportunities around reserves is imperative., Competing Interests: Competing interests statement:The authors declare no competing interest.

The mountain forests of Middle America are renowned for their endemic biodiversity, and arboreal alligator lizards (genus Abronia) are high-profile vertebrates endemic to this region. In this work, we describe a new species of arboreal Abronia that is known only from the type locality in the Northern Highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. The new species is diagnosed from all other members of the genus Abronia by the following combination of characters: lack of protuberant or spine-like supra-auricular scales, lack of protuberant or casque-like posterolateral head scales, dorsum of head pale yellow with distinct dark markings, 35-39 transverse dorsal scale rows, lateralmost row of ventral scales enlarged relative to adjacent medial row, and dorsum brown with darker crossbands that are sometimes reduced to rows of spots. We provisionally include the new species in the subgenus Lissabronia based on genomic and morphological evidence, but our results also suggest a close relationship to the subgenus Abaculabronia. The new species is geographically separated from the nearest Lissabronia and Abaculabronia species by the lowland Central Depression of Chiapas. Ongoing habitat loss and other factors imperil the new species, leading us to propose its listing under multiple threatened species frameworks. Because the Northern Highlands have poor coverage of protected areas, we briefly comment on the potential of this new species for stimulating conservation in the region., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Clause et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Based on examination of most of the existing museum specimens of the rare bufonid frog Inciliustacanensis , we present a redescription and new diagnosis for this species. The species is limited to small region of the Pacific chain of volcanoes in southeastern Chiapas, Mexico, and adjacent areas of Guatemala. The species has not been observed in the wild since 1984 and may have been reduced or eliminated by regional epidemics of chytridiomycosis., (Kathryn McCarthy, Ollie Shinn, Roberto Luna-Reyes, Joseph R. Mendelson III.)