PARENT SESSION
Oral Session # 55: Resource Management II: Terrestrial Systems.
Presiding: E Latty
Wednesday, August 6. 1:30 PM to 5:00 PM, SITCC Meeting Room 106.
Terrestrial salamanders in managed forest systems: Early results from the Appalachian silviculture and biodiversity study.
Haas, Carola*,1, Knapp, Shannon2, Harpole, Douglas3, Williams, Lori1, 1 cahaas@vt.edu, Blacksburg, VA2 Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN3 Virginia Cooperative Extension, Warrenton, VA
ABSTRACT- In 1994 we began a long-term, stand-level, replicated experiment to address the potential conflict between demands for increased production of timber and non-timber forest products versus the desire to maintain native biodiversity and ecosystem processes in the eastern deciduous forest. As public sentiment against clearcutting has grown, it is important to understand the ecological and economic effects of alternative harvest and regeneration methods. This study is designed to compare several forest management alternatives and their effects on understory plant and animal communities, processes, and projected economic value. We randomly assigned the following treatments to experimental stands: silvicultural clearcut, commercial clearcut, leavetree, shelterwood, group selection, understory control using herbicide, and an unmanaged control. Relative abundance of salamanders on the control plots fluctuated somewhat annually, probably in response to weather conditions. Using analysis of covariance with preharvest abundance as a covariate we detected a significant treatment effect on abundance (p < 0.0001). All treatments with canopy removal had significantly fewer salamanders than the unmanaged control and the herbicide treatments. Relative abundance of salamanders in plots harvested with alternative methods were not significantly higher than in the silvicultural clearcut. Because clearcutting disturbs a smaller area to obtain the same volume of wood, clearcutting may have the lowest impact on salamander populations. We examined two species and found that the percent of females gravid did not differ between animals captured in uncut vs. cut treatments (57% vs. 55% of Desmognathus ocrophaeus females, and 31 vs. 32% of Plethodon cinereus females were gravid). We discuss sampling issues, additional demographic data, and habitat characteristics in the context of identifying species or populations at risk from varying management practices.
Key words: amphibian populations, forest management, salamander, Appalachian forests