Salamander Chronicles

I had a good week in Georgia.  I did not get as much data as I would have liked, but that should have been expected given I had never visited any of these sites before.  I will come down again either later this year or several times next spring.  Despite my stay in Georgia being low on data, it was high on fun finds.  I tried to put together a little video of the trip.  One of the videos of Desmognatus ocoee has a little conversion error, but the rest should  look alright.  I will hopefully work out the kinks with video editing as the summer goes on and eventually add some narration to the videos to provide some more information.  For now, enjoy this video, I am off to Tennessee!

First off, another big thanks to the Explorers Club who awarded me the Exploration Fund grant for the third year in a row. This grant will help me examining the role of the Bogert effect in Plethodon jordani.

The first couple days in Georgia have been pretty uneventful as I have been visiting low elevation sites. Also, since this is my first time visiting all of these sites I have needed to explorer a bit. I have yet to find any salamanders; however, after learning my lesson last year, I have set up protocol for collecting species diversity and general microhabitat data. So no salamanders, but I still have data. I have also found a couple fun herps, including a worm snake (Carphophis amoenus) and an eastern box turtle (Terrapene carolina).

I am more optimistic for the next two sites I am visiting because one of them is a known site for the recently described patch nosed salamander (Urspelerpes brucei) and the other site seems to be in a more remote area. I am hoping the next couple days will produce some nice Georgia salamanders!

Like the amphibians, I am reemerging after a long cold winter. Since my last post, which was many months ago, not much has happened in my research world besides applying for numerous grants to maintain sufficient funding to keep me moving this field season. I was also lucky enough to be on the Ohio University Graduate College Fellowship this year which allowed me the time to apply to more grants, better prepare for field work, and most importantly start my field season earlier. Many of my low elevation sites become much to warm for salamanders later in the year so an early start will help me fill in many of my sampling gaps. Also now that the field season is starting up, I am really hoping to keep updates coming much more frequently focusing on natural history observations during this spring and summer.

The 2014 field season kicks off Friday, March 21st when I head to northern Georgia. I will be working my way up to Virginia during this first trip before returning to Athens in early April. I will make a couple more trips down south before starting the bulk of my field work on May 9th. Below is my tentative schedule which I will try to keep updated. If anyone wants to come see come salamanders let me know!

I will also be attending the 2014 Plethodontid Meeting in Tulsa, Oklahoma May 18th-20th. This meeting only occurs once every 5-10 years so I am really excited to get to participate in this event. Eighty talks/posters on plethodontid salamanders, how can you not be excited!?

For now, I will continue preparing for a long spring and summer of field work, be on the look out for a salamander filled post next week!