**5. Conclusions**

Advances in knowledge regarding the geographical distribution of the *Brachycephalus* species have confirmed that they are in fact restricted, and this restriction is the reason for classifying 58% of the species of the genus as threatened according to IUCN criteria. Restricted geographical distributions should be considered an attribute of the species of the *Brachycephalus* montane groups. This coincides with the tendency of species with small ranges to be geographically concentrated and disproportionately under the threat of extinction [125] as well as with the tendency of newly described species to be more threatened than those described earlier [3]. With an increased understanding of the nature of most *Brachycephalus* species as microendemic species, international (IUCN) and national (MMA) agencies might be more likely to update their conservation status based on this proposal. Furthermore, Brazil has the highest amphibian richness in the world and the highest description of new species in recent years, but it is one of the countries with the lowest update rates of conservation status [3].

Deforestation and loss of habitat quality impact almost all species of *Brachycephalus* (22 species). Species of the genus are locally highly abundant, but they respond in density and geographical distribution to temperature and humidity [23,24,27], which vary along the altitudinal gradient [122,124]. Climate change can influence climatic conditions along the altitudinal gradient, confining the distribution of species even further to higher altitudes in the future.

The common action to protect endangered species in Brazil is to create protected areas. The creation of a new protected area in southern Paraná (Serra do Araçatuba) and adjacent to Santa Catarina (Serra do Quiriri) is proposed, but only because it would protect three species (*B. quiririensis*—CR, *B. leopardus*—EN, and *B. auroguttatus*—DD). In the marshes and grasslands associated with the forest of occurrence of these three *Brachycephalus* species is another endangered frog, *Melanophryniscus biancae*, which is a candidate for EN [126,127]. One reserve including the distribution of these four species would have about 11,000 ha—6,000 ha of forests, and 5,000 ha of grasslands [126]—and would also protect the springs of important rivers, such as the Negro, Cubatão, and Pirabeiraba. The creation of several other protected areas to safeguard the remaining threatened species without occurrence in reserves is impractical in the current Brazilian economic scenario. A program to lease strategic private land for owners to keep them intact with the support of international resources is a possibility for the conservation of the species in the short and medium term.

**Supplementary Materials:** The following are available online at http://www.mdpi.com/1424-2818/11/9/150/s1, Table S1: Records and distribution of the extent of occurrence (EO) of the species of Brachycephalus in relation to protected areas (PA).

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, M.R.B.; methodology, M.R.B.; formal analysis, M.R.B.; investigation, M.R.B.; data curation, M.R.B.; writing—original draft preparation, M.R.B. and L.T.; writing—review and editing, M.R.B., L.T. and M.R.P.

**Funding:** Field researches was partially funded by Fundação Grupo Boticário de Proteção à Natureza (through grants 0895\_20111 and A0010\_2014, conducted by Mater Natura—Instituto de Estudos Ambientais) and National Geographic Society (through the gran<sup>t</sup> EC–50722R-18 to L.T.) L.T. was supported through a gran<sup>t</sup> from CAPES / Reitoria and M.R.P. through a gran<sup>t</sup> from CNPq/MCT (571334/2008–3).

**Acknowledgments:** Luiz F. Ribeiro provided valuable assistance during the field work. We thank two anonymous reviewers for comments on the manuscript.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study, the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data, the writing of the manuscript, or the decision to publish the results.
