Herpetofauna in Restored and Degraded Remnant Tallgrass Prairie

Joseph A. Baecher^†‡, Phillip N. Vogrinc^‡, and John D. Willson^‡

^† Department of Biological Sciences, Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond, Kentucky 40475, USA

^‡ Department of Biological Sciences, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas 72701, USA

Prairie-wetland Ecosystems:

• Surface and subsurface waters are

vital habitat for waterfowl, frogs,

salamanders, etc.¹

• Support many specialist and endemic species^2,3
• Mosaics of wetland size and

permanence, are important for

grassland systems, and promote

diversity^4,5

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Prairie and Wetland Losses:

• Ideal for agriculture and livestock production⁶
• Alterations to hydrology and plant communities⁷
• Less than 50% of historic wetlands remain on earth^8,9
• 82.6 – 99.9% of tallgrass prairie has been destroyed in the Great Plains region¹⁰
• Introduction of domestic grazers and

conversion to cropland are at fault^11,12

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McDaniel College

• 19-ha wetland mitigation site
• Remnant tallgrass habitat in the Osage Prairie region of NW Arkansas

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Woolsey Wet Prairie Sanctuary

Woolsey Wet Prairie Sanctuary

2006 �

Plant monitoring:

• Prescribed annual spring burns
• Planting native grasses
• Revived over 300 species of native prairie grasses¹³
• Summer 2015 – 465 Plant Species

Faunal assemblages of restored habitat:

• Plants are often the focal species of prairie and wetland restoration
• Fragmentation in the landscape precludes colonization of animals
• Limited dispersal, low fecundity, and sensitivity to physical conditions are limiting factors in colonization
• Herpetofauna – indicators of habitat quality and connectivity

Species of Interest :

Regina grahamii (Graham’s Crayfish Snake)

• State Status—Imperiled

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(Roberts and Irwin 2012)

JD Willson

Species of Interest:

Regina grahamii (Graham’s Crayfish Snake)

• State Status—Imperiled

Lithobates areolatus (Crawfish Frog)

• Federal Status—Near Threatened¹⁸

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(Roberts and Irwin 2012)

JD Willson

Species of Interest:

Regina grahamii (Graham’s Crayfish Snake)

• State Status—Imperiled

Lithobates areolatus (Crawfish Frog)

• Federal Status—Near Threatened¹⁸

Ambystoma texanum (Smallmouth Salamander)

• Uncommonly encountered

(Roberts and Irwin 2012)

JD Willson

Responses of specialists to restoration:

• Detection difficulties limit our understanding of the population trends and distributions of rare, specialist species
• Lack of data documenting responses of specialist species to prairie restoration activities
• Reptiles and amphibians are a suitable and novel organism in prairie wetland restoration ecology

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Objectives:

• Document the response of prairie specialists to ecosystem restoration
• Compare the herpetofaunal assemblages of degraded a restored remnant tallgrass habitat

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Degraded prairie

Restored Prairie

Methods:

Anuran Call Surveys

• N = 5 degraded; N = 4 restored
• Wetlands surveyed once per week
• 15-Mar—10-July, 2014  
• Intensity of chorus was measured on a scale²³ of 1—3
• Analyses limited to calls during species’ primary calling season

Methods:

Aquatic Trapping

• Plastic minnow-traps^24,25
• 16-March—10-June 2014
• 3500 trap-nights with equal effort

Methods:

Coverboard Surveys:

• Plywood cuts (1.5 cm X 70 cm X 80 cm) were deployed to serve as artificial cover objects^26,27
• Restored=35, Degraded=35
• Flipped weekly from 11-March—6-November, 2014

(Google maps 2015)

Coverboard arrays

Capture-mark-recapture:

(Winne et al. 2006²⁹)

• Medical cauteries
• Captive birth of gravid natricines

JD Willson

Results: Anuran call intensity

**

*

**

*

= p ≤ 0.05

= p ≤ 0.005

*

**

Individuals Captured per Wetland

*

* = p ≤ 0.05

*

Captures per trap-night

p=0.06

Captures per trap-night

Conclusions and implications:

• Overall diversity of restored and degraded prairie habitat was high
• Specialist species exhibited strong response to prairie restoration activities

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Kory Roberts

Kory Roberts

Conservation Concerns:

• Road mortality

40 instances of road mortality recorded for snakes in 2014 alone

Alex,

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Paste gruesome picture of road kill here.

Love, Alex

Conservation Concerns:

• Road mortality
• Development

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(City of Fayetteville 2012)

(Google maps 2016)

Wedington corridor current:

Wedington corridor future:

(Phil Vogrinc 2015)

Petition to protect habitat:

Implications:

• Degraded prairie may also have ecological value
• A conservation plan is critical for the preservation of these prairie specialists

Kory Roberts

Ongoing Research and Directions for Future:

Fall 2014:

2.5 grams

May 2015:

16 grams

June 2015:

48 Grams!

> 400cm SVL!

Reproductive size in ~ 1 year old!

Mesocosm experiment: Responses of larval L. areolatus to leaf-litter quality

Radio telemetry: determining upland use of metamorphic L. areolatus

Acknowledgements:

• Site access and support:
• Bruce Shackelford
• Jeff Hickle
• Funding:
• Arkansas Audubon Society
• Additional Observers:
• Meredith Swartout, PhD student
• Macayla Coleman, BS student

Questions?

LITERATURE CITED:

1. Lentinen RM, Galatowisch SM, Tester JR (1999) Consequences of Habitat Loss and Fragmentation for Wetlands Amphibian Assemblages. WETLANDS 19(1):1-12.
2. Risser PG (1988) Diversity in and among grasslands. In: E. O. Wilson (ed.) Biodiversity. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., pp 176-180.
3. Knopf, FL (1996) Prairie Legacies—Birds. In: F. B. Samson and F. L. Knopf (eds.) Prairie Conservation: Preserving North America’s Most Endangered Ecosystem. Island Press, Washington, DC., pp 135-148.
4. Weller, M.W. 1982. Management of freshwater marshes for wildlife. In Ratti JT, Flake ID, and Wentz WA (eds.) Waterfowl ecology and management: Selected Readings. The Wildlife Society; Bethesda, Maryland, pp 942—956.
5. Eldridge, J (1990) Ecology of Northern Prairie. Fish and Wildlife Leaflet 13.3.5. pp 1—7.
6. Samson FB, Knopf FL, Ostlie WR (2004) Great Plains ecosystems: past, present, and future. Wildlife Society Bulletin 32(1):6-15.
7. Audubon 2015
8. Van Der Kamp et al. 1999
9. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) Ecosystems And Human Well-being: Wetlands And Water Synthesis, World Resources Institute, Washington, DC.
10. Dahl 1990
11. Samson FB, Knopf FL (1994) Prairie conservation in North America. BioScience 44:418-421.
12. Warner, RE (1994) Agricultural Land Use and Grassland Habitat in Illinois: Future Shock for Midwestern Birds?. Conservation Biology 8:147-156.
13. National Geographic 2015
14. Trauth, S. E., Robison, H. W., and Plummer, M. V. 2004. The Amphibians and Reptiles of Arkansas. University of Arkansas Press. Fayetteville, Arkansas. 421 pp.
15. Gibbons and Dorcas 2004
16. Roberts and Irwin 2012
17. Conant, R. and Collins, J. T. 1998. A Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians – Eastern/Central North America. Houghton-Mifflin, Boston MA.
18. IUCN redlist
19. Phillips et al. 1999
20. Hammerson and Parris 2004
21. Petranka 1998
22. Hammerson 2004
23. Weir LA, Mossman JM (2005) North American Amphibian Monitoring Program (NAAMP). In M. Lannoo (ed.) Amphibian Declines: conservation status of United States amphibians. University of California Press, Oakland, California, pp. 307-313.
24. Keck, M. B. 1994. A new technique for sampling semi-aquatic snake populations. Herpetological Natural History 2:101—103.
25. Willson, J.D., C. T. Winne, M. B. Keck. 2008. Empirical tests of biased body size distributions in aquatic snake captures. Copeia 2008(no.2):401—408.
26. Grant, BW, et al. 2001. The use of coverboards in estimating patterns of reptile and amphibian biodiversity. Wildlife 2001: populations, 379—403.
27. Willson, J. D., J. W. Gibbons. 2009. Drift fences, coverboards, and other traps. In Dodd CK Jr. (ed.) Amphibian Ecology and Conservation: A Handbook of Techniques, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, pp 229—245.
28. Box turtle project
29. Winne CT, Willson JD, Andrews KM, Reed RN (2006) Efficacy of marking snakes with disposable medical cautery units. Herpetological Review 37:52–54.
30. Baecher, J.A., P.N. Vogrinc, J.C. Guzy, J.C. Neal, and J.D. Willson. 2014. Lithobates areolatus (Crawfish Frog). Predation. Herpetological Review 45:681-82.4.

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