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Urban and wildland herpetofauna communities and riparian microhabitats along the Salt River, Arizona

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Abstract

Metropolitan areas are continually expanding, resulting in increasing impacts on ecosystems. Worldwide, riverine floodplains are among the most endangered landscapes and are often the focus of restoration activities. Amphibians and reptiles have valuable ecological roles in ecosystems, and promoting their abundance and diversity when rehabilitating riparian systems can contribute to reestablishing degraded ecosystem functions. We evaluated the herpetofauna community by measuring abundance, richness, diversity, and species-habitat relations along three reaches (wildland, urban rehabilitated, and urban disturbed reaches) varying in degree of urbanization and rehabilitation along the Salt River in central Arizona. We performed visual surveys for herpetofauna and quantified riparian microhabitat along eight transects per reach. The wildland reach had the greatest herpetofauna species richness and diversity, and had similar abundance compared to the urban rehabilitated reach. The urban disturbed reach had the lowest herpetofauna abundance and species richness, and had a similar diversity compared to the urban rehabilitated reach. Principal Component Analysis reduced 21 microhabitat variables to five factors which described habitat differences among reaches. Vegetation structural complexity, vegetation species richness, densities of Prosopis (mesquite), Salix (willow), Populus (cottonwood), and animal burrow density had a positive correlation with at least one herpetofauna community parameter, and had a positive correlation with abundance of at least one lizard species. Rehabilitation activities positively influenced herpetofauna abundance and species richness; whereas, urbanization negatively influenced herpetofauna diversity. Based on herpetofauna-microhabitat associations, we recommend urban natural resource managers increase vegetation structural complexity and woody debris to improve herpetofauna habitat when rehabilitating degraded riparian systems.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Nick Vandehei for his tremendous help collecting field data and Yun Ouyang for his help to create the study area map. We thank the city of Phoenix, city of Tempe, and the Tonto National Forest Mesa Ranger District for granting permission to perform this study on their land. We thank Ward Brady and Juliet Stromberg for their assistance on study design, techniques, analyses, and for providing comments on earlier manuscript drafts. We thank Kelly Steele and Elizabeth Makings for help identifying plant species. Partial support for MJB was provided by the National Science Foundation (no. BCS-1026865 via Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research) and Arizona State University Department of Applied Sciences and Mathematics.

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  1. Department of Applied Sciences and Mathematics, Arizona State University at the Polytechnic campus, 6073 S Backus Mall, Wanner Hall, Mesa, AZ, 85212, USA

    Melanie J. Banville & Heather L. Bateman

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  1. Melanie J. Banville
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  2. Heather L. Bateman
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Correspondence to Heather L. Bateman.

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Banville, M.J., Bateman, H.L. Urban and wildland herpetofauna communities and riparian microhabitats along the Salt River, Arizona. Urban Ecosyst 15, 473–488 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-012-0228-5

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