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Anuran occupancy of created wetlands in the Central Appalachians

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Abstract

Evaluating the adequacy of created wetlands to replace the functions of lost natural wetlands is important because wetland mitigation is a major tool used to offset wetland losses. However, measurements such as vegetative cover and presence of wildlife may not provide sufficient evidence that created wetlands are functioning properly and thus examining the ecology of wetland biota such as that of amphibians may be a more useful surrogate for function. The objectives of this study were to compare the occupancy and detection of calling anurans in created wetlands relative to beaver-created wetlands. Five-, 10-min, and broadcast call surveys were performed at 24 wetlands throughout the Central Appalachians once every month from March through August of 2009 and 2010. Occupancy modeling was used to estimate the occupancy and detection of individual species, incorporating relevant environmental variables. The occupancy of anurans did not differ between human-created and beaver (Castor canadensis)-created wetlands. Detection of anurans was largely unaffected by call survey type, but several environmental covariates had a significant effect on the detectability of calling anurans. Our results suggest that the function of providing adequate chorusing habitat for adult anurans is being fulfilled by the created wetlands that we examined.

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Acknowledgements

We thank E. Miller, B. Olejasz, A. Nemeyer, and N. McCoard for help in the field. Funding and logistical support was provided by the WVU Division of Forestry and Natural Resources through the McIntire-Stennis program, the WVU Environmental Research Center, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and a student research grant to GFS from the South Atlantic Chapter of the Society of Wetland Scientists. J.T. Anderson was supported by the National Science Foundation under Cooperative Agreement No. OIA-1458952 during manuscript preparation. This is scientific article number XXXX of the WVU Agriculture and Forestry Experiment Station.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Natural Resources, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, USA

    Gabriel F. Strain, Andrew N. Tri & James T. Anderson

  2. Department of Statistics, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, USA

    Philip J. Turk

  3. Department of Statistics, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

    Philip J. Turk

  4. West Virginia University, Natural History Museum, Morgantown, WV, USA

    James T. Anderson

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  1. Gabriel F. Strain
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Correspondence to Gabriel F. Strain.

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Strain, G.F., Turk, P.J., Tri, A.N. et al. Anuran occupancy of created wetlands in the Central Appalachians. Wetlands Ecol Manage 25, 369–384 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11273-016-9523-x

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