Amphibian Monitoring for the Greater Yellowstone Network

Lafrance, Benjamin; Ray, Andrew; Cram, Jana; Legg, Kristin; Daley, Rob

This project houses the data package and associated products for the amphibian and wetland monitoring protocol conducted by the Greater Yellowstone Inventory and Monitoring Network. Amphibian and wetland monitoring surveys have been conducted annually in Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks and John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Memorial Parkway since 2005. The main goals of this program are to estimate wetland flooding and amphibian breeding occurrence rates. These annual measures of amphibian occurrence and wetland dynamics offer insights about changing wetland conditions and amphibian status and trends, contributing to local, regional, and national level trend analysis. This work, when combined with historical data, will provide managers and the public with information on a class of native fauna and on wetland characteristics that are important for understanding long-term trends or climate induced changes to wetlands. This data package includes all wetland site visits and associated data from 2005-2023. The methodology consists of dual-observer visual encounter surveys with single visits per year to a target site (although some sites were visited multiple times per year in 2005 and 2006). The data collected in 2005 represent trial methods and are not intended for analysis with or comparison to data collected starting in 2006. Catchments in the low-quality stratum of the study design were found to provide scant information due to the low occurrence of detected breeding sites in the small number of catchments that GRYN was able to survey. Therefore, this stratum has been largely excluded from annual monitoring since 2011. Additional habitat and weather data were collected on site. The annual goal of the protocol is to conduct surveys in over 300 sites dispersed throughout 31 core catchments (sampling units). However, the Greater Yellowstone Network crews often survey more areas when resources allow. All four native species targeted for occupancy monitoring are surveyed for and found within the core catchments: Boreal Chorus Frog (Pseudacris maculata), Columbia Spotted Frog (Rana luteiventris), Western Tiger Salamander (Ambystoma mavortium), and Western Toad (Anaxyrus boreas). Note that Western Toad is operationally protected within Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks as per 2019 memos (https://irma.nps.gov/DataStore/Reference/Profile/2263658; https://irma.nps.gov/DataStore/Reference/Profile/2263657), which limits unauthorized use or sharing of their data and location information.

Amphibian Monitoring for the Greater Yellowstone Network

Program

Products

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