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Most amphibian species have biphasic life histories and undergo an ontogenetic shift from aquatic to terrestrial habitats. In deforested landscapes, streams and forest fragments are frequently disjunct, jeopardizing the life cycle of forest-associated amphibians with aquatic larvae. We tested the impact of habitat split--defined as human-induced disconnection between habitats used by different life-history stages of a species--on four forest-associated amphibian species in a severely fragmented landscape of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. We surveyed amphibians in forest fragments with and without streams (referred to as wet and dry fragments, respectively), including the adjacent grass-field matrix. Our comparison of capture rates in dry fragments and nearby streams in the matrix allowed us to evaluate the number of individuals that engaged in high-risk migrations through nonforested habitats. Adult amphibians moved from dry fragments to matrix streams at the beginning of the rainy season, reproduced, and returned at the end of the breeding period. Juveniles of the year moved to dry fragments along with adults. These risky reproductive migrations through nonforested habitats that expose individuals to dehydration, predation, and other hazards may cause population declines in dry fragments. Indeed, capture rates were significantly lower in dry fragments compared with wet fragments. Declining amphibians would strongly benefit from investments in the conservation and restoration of riparian vegetation and corridors linking breeding and nonbreeding areas.

Animal space-use patterns can vary widely with age, sex, and stage of the annual cycle, but the factors that drive pattern shifts are poorly understood. Here, we provide preliminary evidence that mating strategy (i.e., polygamy) influences movements of parents attending recently fledged young. We monitored the space use during the post-fledging period for Vermivora spp. broods led by a male and female with a split brood in 2014 and the same male with 2 fledglings in 2015. We observed contextand sex-specific space-use patterns that seemed to be driven by the male's attention to a secondary polygamous nest in 2014. When attending his secondary nest, the male restricted his primary brood's movements to within the nesting habitat close to his secondary nest until the nest failed. This pattern was distinct from movements of both the 2014 female and the same male in 2015 when he lacked a secondary nest. These observations may explain some reports from other studies that female-led broods disperse farther than male-led broods. Future work should explicitly consider the potential impacts of facultative polygamy on post-fledging space use, especially in species traditionally considered monogamous.