Northeast Temperate Network (NETN) - Forest Amphibian Monitoring
Northeast Temperate Network (NETN) - Forest Amphibian Monitoring.
Collect statistically defensible trends in terrestrial salamander populations. The forests of North America host several genera of small slender salamanders. These salamanders are so adapted to living in woodlands that they have dispensed with the expected amphibian aquatic larval stage and live their entire life cycle within the humus and soil of the forest floor. Here they rely on the moist chambered and channeled soils for retreats, because without direct soil contact, or rain saturated litter, they quickly dry out (desiccate). Their forays to the surface for the necessities of feeding, courting, and mating must coincide with the right conditions of cool, wet, calm weather. In harmony with a low-input, subterranean life this group of salamanders is the most energetically efficient of the vertebrates (Feder 1983). Energy assimilation rates (conversion of what they eat into mass or energy) varies from 48% to 98% (often in the 90+ % range), contrasting sharply with rates of between 0.5 to 1.22% for vertebrate endotherms (Larsen 1992, Pough 1980, Jaeger pers. comm.). Other aspects of salamander life histories further underscore their biological stability and tenacity. * Extremely long-lived (20+ years) (Hairston 1987) * Low reproductive rate (fecundity) * Often guard their eggs * Take 2 or more years to mature * Eliminate the energetic costs of lungs and ventilating * Respire directly through their skin (White 1978) * Can go for months, if not years, without eating (Feder 1983) * Body temperatures fluctuate with the local substrates (Feder 1982) * Store fat in their tails