Environmental Variables Affecting Salamander Distribution Between Private and Federal Lands

Pendergrass, Miranda

undergraduate thesis: ABSTRACT: As the global populations of amphibians decline, more research is needed understanding the habitat needs of these creatures. Previously, it was found that a directly adjacent, privately owned plot of land to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park called Mountain Homes Inc. had significantly larger populations of salamanders without explanation. This study focused on gathering data on habitat characteristics such as Hemlock counts, light prevalence, soil moisture, soil pH, soil temperature, and hog disturbance, comparing the two areas of land along the Cane Creek water shed, while bringing in data from the studies of this region from the two previous years. There were forty plots altogether, twenty in Mountain Homes and twenty in the National Park, which were divided evenly between aquatic and terrestrial plots. The results showed a higher hemlock count (P=0.02) and lower hog disturbance (P=0.005) on the privately-owned land, while there wasn’t a difference in soil moisture (P=0.11), temperature (P=0.84), pH (P=0.21), or light prevalence (P=0.16, P=0.72). This study suggests that the lower instances of hog disturbance may be influential as the other habitat characteristics in which the hemlock presence would influence remained indifferent to land ownership, such as temperature, pH, soil moisture, and light prevalence. Future studies should focus on invasive species presence and influence on salamander populations.