A warm welcome to the drift fences of SRS

Since arriving to a warm welcome at the SREL two weeks ago I have been given the opportunity to observe and participate in a number of different studies. One of the most anticipated of which was my first collection and release of marbled salamanders at Rainbow Bay (see photo to the right). Distinguishing between marked and unmarked salamanders is still a developing skill but I am becoming more familiar with the appearance of regrowth toes and what each mark means. As fall migrations continue, we have also pulled some leopard frogs, a garter snake, a bull frog, and numerous tadpoles in from the drift fence and minnow traps at the H-O2 wetlands.

My past research has taken me all over the country and the world yet I have never had the possibility of catching such diversity at one drift fence. A previous drift fence experience of mine did allow for encounters with another great amphibian though, the Siberian Salamander (Salamandrella keyserlingii) - The only salamander to brave the weather in the Amur region of Russia, it has a tolerance of -30-45⁰C and has been found 3-14m deep in permafrost, only to “wake up” and walk away once warm. Few studies have been conducted in this region of Russia and, in an effort to establish species diversity and relative abundance records for the region, we built drift fences along an Amur River basin wetland complex. Our hope is that, with this baseline information, we can start creating more robust studies in the region to learn more about the incredibly resilient Siberian Salamanders as well as many of its neighbors.

As fall ramps up here in South Carolina I look forward to seeing what will come in on the drift
fence.

Back from the long hot summer

To the few of you who were loyally following the blog I apologize for disappearing.  After a cold dry winter we had an even dryer summer which made things somewhat uninteresting in the field here.  That is of course unless you absolutely love spiders b/c we find TONS of those--like the one in the photo.  But fall is here and with or without rain the marbled salamanders dutifully return to their breeding grounds.  This year we have a much bigger study going with them.  Near the main study site, Rainbow Bay, are four other wetlands that marbleds go to: Linda's Pond, Bullfrog Pond, Pickerel Pond, and NPR pond.  One question we are interested in is how much movement is there among the ponds.  In the past David Scott has done some work on several species of Ambystomatid salamanders to estimate dispersal from Rainbow Bay to the other sites.  We're doing it again this year b/c in the Spring of 2010 we had over 10,000 marbled salamander metamorphs come out of Rainbow.  This fall would be when most of those are ready to breed so we can see which pond they show up at (they all are marked).  It was hard work but we (ie: David) opened up partial fences at the other sites and now several of us are running all the bays when it rains (rarely).  We've had about 2000 adults come back to Rainbow so far and much less than that at the partial fences, but we've definitely seen some that were born at RB and have dispersed to other sites.  Will be great to get the final numbers later.  The image shows how the wetlands are related to each other and where the fences are located.


Off to The Wildlife Society meeting in Hawaii tomorrow!!