This document is intended as a guide for studying long-toed salamanders, with emphasis on survey techniques and long-term monitoring. Egg surveys are recommended as the best method by which to...
Description
This document is intended as a guide for studying long-toed salamanders, with emphasis on survey techniques and long-term monitoring. Egg surveys are recommended as the best method by which to identify salamander presence, unless water turbidity limits visibility. Egg surveys can also be used as an indirect way to track population trends over time. Larvae searches can be used as an ancillary method to search for presence, but tend to be less reliable because larvae are mobile and cryptic. Capture methods include pitfall and minnow trapping. Capturing adults is useful for gathering data on body parameters and general health, and is considered secondary to pond surveys. Mark-recapture is the only method by which to gather data on population size or relative abundance, although it is a long-term, time-consuming process that is confounded by the stochasticity inherent in amphibian populations. Long-term monitoring of known breeding ponds is necessary to understand population trends and...