Salamander Chronicles

Well, I haven’t updated my blog since my last summer.  Not from a lack of activity, but rather the busiest year of grad school up until this point for me.  This  was my longest and final field season and it ended up being so busy that I barley took any photos and consequently never wrote any blog posts.  So instead of a long winded description of the past year I am just going to highlight a couple things from field work.  Future blog posts will most likely cover problems with data and statistical analyses (fun!), and my progress in getting a post doc position or job!

My field season started in March at my southern most sites in the Smoky Mountains. I was able to start early with the help of an OCEES fellowship which relieved be a teaching duties for the spring semester. The big goal of coming out early was  to sample lower elevation field sites that become too warm for salamanders by the time I am normally able to start my field season.

The first half of my field season last from March until late April with the help of Courtney Thomas, Becca Wier, and Ryan Friebertshauser.  Overall, it was a fantastic two months and I was able to wrap up data collection for my main dissertation project.  We did see some very cool animals, but as I mentioned, I barely took any photos!  However, here are a couple that I took with my phone.

 

The second half of my field season focused on an extension of my dissertation work and was only possible because my advisor Donald Miles and myself received an OURC grant of $8,000.   This project involved assessing the Bogert effect in plethodontid salamanders.  The Bogert effect essentially says that  a species uses behavioral compensation (in my case, salamanders using specific microhabitats) to maintain physiological performance even at the edge of their range.  If this is occurring salamanders may be able to utilize different microhabitats to cope with climate change. However, if it is not occurring, then salamander numbers may be reduced at the edge of species ranges or ranges may actually contract as the climate continues to change.

 

 

 

I was able to setup a nice lab at Purchase Knob in order to conduct some thermal and hydric experiments to go along with my field work.  This included collecting thermal preference , critical thermal maximum, and water loss rates for several species of Plethodon salamanders from high and low elevation populations.

To study the Bogert effect I placed agar model salamanders (which provide water loss rates) and iButtons (continuously record temperature) and various microhabitats from high to low elevation in the smoky mountains.  I also surveyed for salamanders both day and night to assess what kinds of microhabitats they were using. Becca Wier, who helped my during the entire summer of 2014 and for a week in spring 2015, Morgan Etheridge, and Jessica Mace all helped this summer.  These field assistants were a tremendous help during this second session of field work to the point that they complete the majority of the actual field work the last few weeks while I entered data.  Overall, this project also went extremely well, we even had some salamanders hanging out with the agar models!.  I will finish organizing and analyzing data this fall. So look for updates as the results of this research progress!

I have yet again failed to keep this updated all summer.  Even though I have an extra battery in my car which basically allows me to charge my laptop anytime I want, the whole working 6-7 days a week and not having internet really made me lazy about writing blog posts. So as I did at the end of last summer I will try to summarize the fun and interesting parts of the field work, but mostly just include the best photos.

The field season was broken into two time frames.  A brief 9 day trip in May with my two field assistants from last year, William Ternes and Celeste Wheeler, and myself, where we covered some low elevation sites in North Carolina and Tennessee and we also visited Plethodon sherando field sites up in Virginia.  This first trip was pretty uneventful.  We were able to collect data to help support a project that we hope to have submitted for publication later this year.  My two co-authors Will and Celeste present a poster on this project which compares habitat use of the microendemic P. sherando to the widespread P. cinereus, at the annual Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists which occurred at the end of the summer in Chattanooga, TN.

After this first field work trip, we all ventured to a the 6th Plethodontid conference.  We joined several other people from Ohio University and drove a van together down to Tulsa, OK.  This conference only happens every 5-10 years, so it was really a treat to get to participate.

The second field work trip happened immediately after the Plethodontid conference. Celeste moved on and went to Arizona to work on tree lizards with my former lab mate Matt Lattanzio.  However, Will Ternes continued on with me and we also added on TWO new field assistants Kristie Warak and Rebecca Wier. Both Kristie and Becca met me at the start point of our second trip which was Bear Heaven campground near Elkins, WV. This second leg started at my northern most sites in West Virginia and weaved south down the Appalachian Mountains into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina and Tennessee.

 

I think it will be best to summarize how the summer went and then show some photos of the coolest animals.

First off, I added some new sampling  this summer.  Previously, I had relied on range maps to determine species richness.  However, this really doesn’t paint an accurate picture especially for microhabitat work.  Therefore, I started doing time constraint searches at all of my sites.  This included 1 person hour of search during both the day and night.  After searching we then completed microhabitat data collection at 10 random locations.  So for each site I currently have two searches and 20 random microhabitat data points.  This will hopefully be continued next year so I can add more searches and more microhabitat points which will help me assess if variability in microhabitat promotes species diversity.  The night surveys allowed us to observe some cool events such as tons of climbing salamanders.  When people think salamanders they normally think of streams.  So when I tell them that there are tons of them in the forest living in the leaf litter they are normally pretty shocked.  It is even harder to convince people that they actually come out in huge numbers and even climb meters off the ground on the right nights!  We also saw salamander emerging from within big decaying logs. This site reminded me of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark when Indiana Jones is in the pit with snakes coming out of holes in the walls….only with salamanders.

 

Other than that addition, everything was the same as last year.  I continued to sample 1 meter square microhabitat plots with and without salamanders.  The number of plots completed is now over 500 which is almost double from the previous two years.

 

Now for the photos, I think it will be easier to break this up into taxonomic groups rather than by location since I am not 100% positive where each salamander (or other animal) came from.  I could look this up using the dates but for this purpose I don’t think it is necessary. If you want more information on any of the animals just let me know, because I probably have a lot more data than what I am presenting here. Also, as a disclaimer, I added in common names for most species, but some I left out.  If you want to know the common name for anything that I did not list, just let me know.

First the reptiles!  The reptiles are going first because it was a fairly uneventful reptile year with a few exceptions.  We only saw a few lizards and I only managed to photograph one.  However, I am pretty sure we found a Coal Skink which would have been a lifer for me and very cool, but I did not get photos so I can not be positive on the ID! The one skink I did get a photo of was just a juvenile  skink, I am guessing it is a common five-lined skink (Plestiodon fasciatus), but I do not know my skinks well enough to be sure as many of them look similar especially when they are young.

 

We also saw several cool snakes, but the only species that was new (for my dissertation field work) was a copperhead.  We found two copperheads, the first was at a field site sitting next to a stream.  The snake was relatively small and did not move despite being photographed for 30 minutes.  I did not move the snake, we just watched it hang out and observed him for a bit.  The second copperhead was found in the middle of the Blue Ridge Parkway  by Becca and Kristie.  This snake was, to put it lightly, very unhappy.  It is possible that Becca’s car straddling over him caused him to be a bit angry.  He struck at us a lot but we eventually got him off the road.

 

Both of the copperheads were found very early in the year, but we had a pretty long delay before out next major snake find.  We saw several black rat snakes, garter snakes, ring neck snakes, but no other uncommon or really neat species until the very last night.  Driving home on our last night out in the field in the Great Smoky Mountains we drove up on a juvenile timber rattlesnake!!  I thought it was a great way to finish off the field season.

 

Now on to the bulk of the cool stuff found this summer, the salamanders!  I mean I am studying them so I would hope most of the cool and rare things found during my work would be salamanders.  Again, I will break this up into different groups, starting with Desmognathus. Desmogs are the group I find the most interesting, but they are also some of my least favorites just because I still find it incredibly difficult to identify them.  As I discussed in my previous post, there is extreme variation in color and pattern in many Desmog species. The  easiest to identify species are the tiny ones and the huge ones like the Pygmy and Black-bellied salamanders.

The next group of salamanders I want show you are the  Pseudotriton, although I only found red salamanders (Pseudotriton ruber), but we found a many of them.  I think we only found one red salamander last year.  This year we found bunches including one site where we found 4 different individuals including some pretty interesting color variation.  I know these guys are pretty common and have a pretty extensive range, but they are one of my favorites to find because they are not as common to find just flipping cover objects and looking through leaf litter, normally you need to search in muddy or mucky areas to have the best luck.  Plus, they are gorgeous, and it is a nice change from finding small bodied Plethodon species all day. So overall I am glad we got to find so many this year, and I also got to add several data points for this species which was fairly unexpected.

 

We also found many of the more common species, but I did not focus on taking photos as much this summer so I only have a few good photos of the genera that are not as prevalent in my research plots including the eft stage of the red spotted newt (Notophthalmus viridescens).

The next group is probably the most important to my research as they are typical terrestrial group of plethodontid salamanders, the Plethodon  species (plethodontid refers to the family Plethodontidae, where Plethodon is a genus within this family).  The other genera of Plethodontids are typically more aquatic with a few exceptions such as the pygmy salamander (Desmognathus wrighti) which is completely terrestrial including direct development.  However, most other plethodontids spend a good portion of their life in or very near water.  I also went out of my way to find some extra cool species, including Weller’s salamander (Plethodon welleri) which is restricted to high elevation spruce habitat within its relatively small range.  Overall I am pretty sure I found more species than I have in any other previous years (I have to confirm with my data on that), but some of it was just for fun and was not always research related.  I think I took off maybe 6 or 7 days all summer and every one of them except for a one day trip to Asheville, NC involved looking for salamanders.  You know how you know you love what you do?  When you go and do what you do for fun when you take a break from doing it for work.  The photos below are the cream of the crop, all the cool species that have either restricted ranges or just look fantastic.

 

 

These final two animals were not research related, but they are both extremely cool animals that I have always wanted to see.

The first is the Cave Salamander (Eurycea lucifuga).  This species can certainly be found outside of caves, but they are much more prevalent in and around them.  I was able to see this guy at a cave near Mountain Lake Biological Station (5-10 miles away).  He was found outside the cave entrance, but from what I have heard inside the cave it is routine to see 20+ cave salamanders, or going out at night many individuals can be seen outside the cave.  I was lucky and able to see this guy outside in the middle of the day.

 

The finally species I will include in this post is the coolest animal I have ever seen in the wild.  I have certainly been a snake person most of my life, but this salamander just blew me away.  When I reported the sighting to NC Wildlife Resources Commission (they request this on their information sheet on the species), I was told the area I was in is a hot spot for the species.  I am of course referring to the great and mighty Hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis).  This species is still common in streams and rivers that meet its habitat requirements, but it is certainly declining through much of its range.  It was a pleasure to get to see them.  It really makes me want to find a way to research this awesome species if I can get the chance.  For the moment I am just glad I was able to see them in the wild (I saw two at this location).

 

Overall, it was a great summer, I collected a bunch of data, I saw a ton of very cool animals, and everything went smoothly. I want to thank my field assistants Will Ternes, Kristie Warak, and Becca Wier who were big helps this summer.  I am looking forward to one more final year of field work which will most likely include some work this fall and extensive work next spring and summer.  After that I will be able to focus on writing and finishing up the dissertation. So for now, I hope you enjoyed the photos.  If you have any questions feel free to ask!   I will hopefully follow up with some posts about this falls field work and maybe one or two on the field ecology lab I will be teaching this semester.  Happy herping!

I spent a week in Georgia scouting field sites at the end of March. I found some great sites and saw some great animals, largely in part due to meeting up with Todd Pierson who is currently finishing up at the University of Georgia and knows the area well. As I mentioned in my previous post, we were able to find the Patch Nosed Salamander (Urspelerpes brucei) which was a real treat. I have been fortunate enough to see many of the micro-endemic salamander species like the Patch Nosed Salamander, San Marcos Salamander, Peaks of Otter Salamander, and Big Levels Salamander. The next leg of my spring fieldwork trip focused on checking up on low elevation sites in North Carolina and Tennessee and then finishing up by heading to Virginia to sample my Big Levels Salamander sites with William Ternes. Will Ternes, Celeste Wheeler, and myself will be presenting a poster on microhabitat use of the Big Levels Salamander at the Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists later this year.

I was able to find some cool animals during this trip, I tried to highlight some of them in this short video. I am planning on making my next post a somewhat informal guide to identifying small bodied Plethodon species. I found out first hand that some of the species can be very difficult to tell apart if you have never seen them before (even if you are experienced with salamanders), but once you know what to look for the task can be made a bit more manageable.   For now, enjoy the nice spring weather and go find some amphibians!

 

 

Well I am finally getting around to posting about my summer field work. I am going to post most of the photos here but the bulk of them can be found all in one place on my websites photo page.

I am going to quickly sum up my experiences as the summer progressed and include a few of the more memorable stories. However, since it is 2 months of work, going into detail for the entire time I would need 50 pages and no one wants that. Before we headed south I did some field work in Wayne National Forest, which produced some cool finds including a Spotted Salamander (Ambystoma maculatum) and an Eastern Box Turtle (Terrapene carolinensis).

 

This field season started for me on May 8th and finished up on July 15th. The original plan was to come back down to field sites later in the summer, however given my funding situation and the late summer heat, it proved to be a better decision to safe my money and wait until next year. From Fall 2013 to Spring 2014 I have the Graduate College Named Fellowship, I will then have the OCEES fellowship in the Spring of 2015. Basically, this means I do not need to teach during this time which will provide me with much more time to finish my research. So ideally I will be able to collect substantial amount of data the next two springs.

As for this past field season, Celeste Wheeler and William Ternes joined me to help with the research. We were crammed into the car with all our gear (pictured above). The season had a rather shaky start. The first sites we visited were down near the Elkmont Campground on the Tennessee side of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. To our surprise, the salamanders were nearly impossible to find at these locations. We spent nearly a week search at several field sites in the area and only turned up a few Desmognathus species and a couple Plethodons at a couple of the sites. Overall, this was pretty disappointing given how easy it is to find salamanders in other areas of the Smokys. We did see some other cool wildlife including a worm snake.

We moved north in hopes of finding some better sites. One site near Cosby Campground near the northwest edge of the Smokys was very productive, as it has been in the past. This was a nice change and helped boost our spirits. We found several species of Plethodon here and a few other cool species.

We continued our trip north and once again found field sites that were very short on salamanders. This left me thinking three things, 1) they were never here, despite what look like good conditions, something about the habitat or location prevents salamanders from existing in high numbers, 2) they were here but disease or changing climate/habitat has pushed them out, or 3) it was the wrong time of year to find them. I am hoping for some of the sites it is merely number 3 which I can test out this Spring when I am on fellowship and can therefore get down to my lower elevation sites much earlier.

One fun part of this summers work was getting to stay at a bunch of new campsites. One of which was right on the Nolichucky River which made for a very soothing nights sleep.

This less productive part of the trip was focusing on low elevation sites primarily in Tennessee and North Carolina. However, as we made our way north things started to improve. The first really successful area was the field sites near Sherando Lake in Virginia. This area also contains Plethodon sherando (still in the process of sorting these photos so none are pictured) which is endemic to the region only existing in Big Levels (their common name is Big Levels Salamander). The field sites in this region were very productive so we not only found a large number of salamander species, but also some other amazing wildlife.

Probably the coolest find of the trip came on a trail off of the Blue Ridge Parkway. We found several red-efts out walking around as we started down the trail.  Eventually, we found a Plethodontid  salamander and began establishing the presence and absence plots so we could record micohabitat data. AFTER we had setup both plots and began collecting data, Celeste was walking between the two plots and noticed a snake. She seem startled, but I assumed it was just another black rat snake or other common (and harmless snake). However, when I looked over I immediately noticed it was not some common snake we had seen several times before, but it was instead a perfectly coiled Timber Rattlesnake, Crotalus horridus! I was very excited because I have rarely been able to see the east coast rattlesnakes, in fact this was only the second time I had seen a Timber Rattlesnake in the wild. We tried to gather the rest of our data as quickly as possible before taking a few photos of the beautiful snake. The snake never rattled, moved quickly, or acted aggressive the entire 40 minute we were in the area. Overall, it was a great experience, and helped make Celeste and Will realize that snakes have excellent camouflage so they needed to be on the look out.

From Sherando we moved to the Camp Roosevelt Campground which was the northern most part of George Washington/Jefferson National Forest that I was using for my research.  We found some salamanders at these field sites, but the most exciting part of this leg of the trip was the emergence of the cicadas.  We saw (and heard) thousands of cicadas emerge from the ground at our campsite.  Having never seen this before, it was quite the treat,

 

After Camp Roosevelt we moved to West Virginia and my first visit to Monongahela National Forest. This was my first trip to this forest so I was pretty excited, however, we immediately ran into some major technological issues. One, West Virginia has very limited cell phone service from what I am use to, and the campsite I chose was a good hour away from any sort of cell reception. Of course as soon as we got to the campsite I had electronic issues in my car including a blown fuse. I was able to change the fuse and get us running again, but that would not last. We ended up needing to get a hotel for the night and spend 2 days getting the car fixed which was much more problematic given I had no cell service. Ultimately the issue was fixed and we got to start field work but it was certainly a stressful time. Fortunately, Monongahela National Forest was awesome and outside of a few field sites, was very productive. These sites included some great finds like P. nettingi and P. wehrlei. We spent a grad total of 2 weeks in West Virginia before heading back down to Virginia.

The first stop in Virginia was back at the Sherando sites, however by this time, things had warmed up and it was no where near as productive as the firs stop. Ultimately I will need to head back down specifically to do some microhabitat work on P. sherando. However, the second stop on our return trip to Virginia was Peaks of Otter, which has the very amazing Peaks of Otter Salamander, P. hubrichti. This is another species that exists in a very restricted area, but it very locally abundant. As well as finding cool salamander here, we also saw a Bared Owl along the side of the Blue Ridge Parkway, followed shortly after by a bobcat with a kill (or roadkill) in it’s mouth. That was the first bobcat I had seen since I was in Florida, so I was pretty excited.

The stop at Peaks of Otter lasted around a week and included several days where we got soaking wet with some of the biggest downpours we had to deal with this summer, but salamanders loved it, so I can’t complain.

We had another stop in Virginia near the Mountain Lake Biological Station where I was able to say hi to Caitlin Gabor and Andrea Aspbury who were both assisting with one of the REU programs there.

Will, Celeste, and myself finally made it back down to the Tennessee and North Carolina area were we bounced further south stopping at sites a long the way. There was some more great scenery especially once we reached the Smoky Mountains again. One cool salamander species that I was really hoping we would find was Plethodon yonahlossee. Luckily we managed to find two of them, including one at a new site which means I will hopefully be able to get more data on them over the next two years.

 

We managed to stop in Asheville, NC for a two day break from field work. It was certainly nice to get our clothes cleaned and sleep in a bed especially after nearly two months of sleeping in a tent.

Our last two stops were probably the most memorable locations. The second to last was at Carolina Hemlocks Recreation Area. The campground is one of the best in North Carolina and is situated on the South Toe River. I had high hopes for this location, because it was near several great field sites and the river supposedly contains Hellbenders (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis). We manged to collect some good data, but we also had to endure nearly 7 straight days of rain. Our tents leaked, everything got wet, and the previously calm and clear river became raging and murky, so we were pretty miserable by the time we left. However, like most places we visited, there were upsides. At a nearby site Celeste also managed to find another gorgeous salamander, a Red Salamander (Pseudotriton ruber) which was in a plot with two other genera of salamanders a Plethodon and a Eurycea.  We also visited Mount Mitchell, the highest point east of the Mississippi.

          

 

Luckily, the last leg of our trip was spent at Purchase Knob. This research station is set on the eastern border of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Purchase Knob was donated in 2000 by Kathryn McNeil and Voit Gilmore. Purchase Knob was built as a summer home, so it provides a very comfortable place for researchers to stay especially for ones who have come from less desirable conditions (like tents in the middle of a 7 day downpour). Our time as Purchase Knob was productive and also provided some additional cool wildlife sightings. However, compared to last summer we saw very few bear and elk. Despite being out over a month longer than last summer we saw only one bear and two elk the entire trip compared to 6+ bears and 40+ elk last year.

Overall it was a fantastic trip, I regret not updating this blog more during the summer as I would have been able to add more detail. Hopefully, I can keep up next summer as I should have better access to electricity.

I close once again with some of the nice views around Purchase Knob.

 

As the semester comes to an end the field season gets closer and closer.  As of now I am still tweaking my travel plans, but I have a general idea of where I am going and at what time. Below I have embedded an Excel spreadsheet which has my current summer itinerary. One tab lists all of the sites and what campground I am planning on staying at along with the approximate dates. A second tab lists the different campsites with nightly costs and amenities offered at each site. The color coding just associates sites together because they are close to one another. The blacked out sites are places I will probably not use, but I have permission to use if I need to add them on later. On the camping tab the color coding is for campsites that are in the same region so I may use one or the other (or a different one if I find something better). Everything is still up in the air, but this is a general idea of where I will be going. If anyone is interested in camping out and looking for some salamanders, let me know and we can try to arrange a spot to meet up.

Once I leave in early May (May 6th – 8th) I will have limited cell service so if you want to meet up during the summer, call and leave a message or send me an e-mail. I will get back to you whenever I get service again.

I will try to update during the summer whenever I have internet, but until then, I am off to do some science!

 

 

In early October I took two field ecology students, Aleesha Tartell and Megan Zdybowicz, down to my field sites in order to gather data from my iButton and HOBO microstation dataloggers.  The trip only lasted 5 days but we still managed to get a lot accomplished.  In addition to gathering data from all of my data loggers and then redeploying each of them, we also completed both Aleesha’s and Megan’s independent  field ecology project.  The trip involved a substantial amount of driving which ended up totaling around 32 hours in the car.  It was also a little colder than I expected so we were not as successful locating salamanders as I would have liked.  However, we did manage to make some interesting finds. The biggest discovery of the trip was that bears (or some other medium/large mammal) really likes plastic. The research coordinator for the Smokys had warned me about this which is why I buried the majority of my data loggers.  Unfortunately, two of my HOBO microstations were attacked despite my protective efforts.  Only one of them was totally missing.  I at least  like to think that some bear got a bit of enjoyment out of my expensive equipment before losing it in the woods somewhere. That makes the several hundred dollars lost less painful. Overall, it was a good trip and I retrieved a large amount of data  and I hope that Aleesha and Megan enjoyed the experience.  Again, because I am so late on this update, I am just including some of the interesting photos from the trip without extensive comment.  Enjoy!