Two-Lined Salamander, a survey protocol
A provincial strategy for finding Eurycea
Frederick W Schueler
Abstract: Eurycea bislineata (Two-lined
Salamander), is one of the cases where Ontario has one species from what is a
whole guild of species farther south, and the map of the species occurrence in
Ontario is mostly made up of holes between central southern Ontario and
isolated records on the Moose River, Manitoulin, Moose Creek, and north of
Sudbury. I've contributed a few of the isolated records, but I've also been
guilty of not turning Eurycea-ish rocks along a lot of streams, partly
because there's no planned protocol for such a search, comparable to the
100-stones protocol for Acroloxus. I'll present a strategy for filling
those holes or confirming the isolation of the outlying populations, based on
my experience and contributions from colleagues in and outside Ontario.
Introduction: The Appalachian Mountains of the southeastern United States are the world centre for the evolution of forest and stream Salamanders of the family Plethodontidae. Of the many stream Salamanders there, only four have followed the retreating glaciers into the Eastern Townships of Quebec and the Adirondacks of northern New York, and only one species, Eurycea bislineata, the Two-lined Salamander, has made it across the St Lawrence into the Ottawa River drainage, and west through Algonquin Park to Georgian Bay, and east through much of Quebec to James Bay and Labrador.
Introduction: The Appalachian Mountains of the southeastern United States are the world centre for the evolution of forest and stream Salamanders of the family Plethodontidae. Of the many stream Salamanders there, only four have followed the retreating glaciers into the Eastern Townships of Quebec and the Adirondacks of northern New York, and only one species, Eurycea bislineata, the Two-lined Salamander, has made it across the St Lawrence into the Ottawa River drainage, and west through Algonquin Park to Georgian Bay, and east through much of Quebec to James Bay and Labrador.
Inadequate searching: With only one
spottily-distributed species to search for, Ontario herpetologists may not seek
out potential Eurycea habitat, and they may not have a proper search
image for the best sort of stones to turn. If they're in brook-like habitat,
they may just forget to look for Two-lines because they're distracted by other
taxa, because the rocks to be turned are right along the waterline between
those that are to be turned for Crayfish or Mudpuppies and those to be turned
for terrestrial Salamanders and snails -- and there's the temptation to just
scan the surface of rocky shores for surface-active herps, Unionid shells,
drifted material, or dead bicycles. Another problem is that without any other
species in the guild, there's no control to use to document unsuccessful
searches. One can say “There's lots of Atlas records of Peepers but none of
Chorus Frogs, so Chorus Frogs are likely absent here,” but there's no species
to take that role for Two-lines.
Absence of Salamanders: This again has two causes:
streams through clayey glacial deposits, and anthropogenic change following
agricultural settlement. Before settlement, the shores of most streams
were shaded by overhanging trees, more water flowed from seepages and springs
and less from runoff, and the beds were lined with stones concentrated by
several thousand years of gradual erosion. Now, with warmer, siltier water, and
the rocky beds of many streams broken up by canalization, it's plausible to
assume that Eurycea have been restricted to isolated stretches of the best
persisting habitat. Many Ontario streams flow through post-glacial Clay Belts
where there isn't much rocky cover or gravelly seepages, and it's often hard to
reach and search these patches of potential habitat
.
.
There's also the problem of 'rare species dilution,'
the difficulty of finding, studying, or understanding species when populations
- whether reproductively self-sustaining or metapopulation sinks - are at very
low density over large areas of their range.
The Search Protocol: Without more widespread guild members to serve as controls, searches which fail to find Eurycea will need to be recorded in the Atlas as negative records. Such a record should include a statement of effort and time expended, why the habitat & season were thought suitable, and other species found in the course of the search. In the case of Eurycea, the principal measure of effort (assuming that start & finish times, and number of observers, are routinely recorded) would be the number of water-edge stones turned, which should be recorded, along with, for successful searches, the number turned before the firat Salamander was found. Other herp species would be reported to the Atlas as separate records, while significant non-herp species would be mentioned in comments.
The “100-stones protocol for Acroloxus,” was derived by Isabelle Picard from Arthur Clarke's mention of examining 200 stones at one station where this rare freshwater limpet was found (“On Acroloxus coloradensis in Eastern Canada,” NMNS Pubs in Zool, No. 2, 1970). Where Eurycea occurs, one usually finds ones first Salamander between the first and fortieth stone, so 100 stones (about 1 person-hour of work) should suffice as evidence of a thorough search.
The Search Protocol: Without more widespread guild members to serve as controls, searches which fail to find Eurycea will need to be recorded in the Atlas as negative records. Such a record should include a statement of effort and time expended, why the habitat & season were thought suitable, and other species found in the course of the search. In the case of Eurycea, the principal measure of effort (assuming that start & finish times, and number of observers, are routinely recorded) would be the number of water-edge stones turned, which should be recorded, along with, for successful searches, the number turned before the firat Salamander was found. Other herp species would be reported to the Atlas as separate records, while significant non-herp species would be mentioned in comments.
The “100-stones protocol for Acroloxus,” was derived by Isabelle Picard from Arthur Clarke's mention of examining 200 stones at one station where this rare freshwater limpet was found (“On Acroloxus coloradensis in Eastern Canada,” NMNS Pubs in Zool, No. 2, 1970). Where Eurycea occurs, one usually finds ones first Salamander between the first and fortieth stone, so 100 stones (about 1 person-hour of work) should suffice as evidence of a thorough search.
The Protocol:
1) procure a small aquarist's dipnet
2)
find a likely site
3) record the usual geographic & environmental
variables (start & finish times, latitude & longitude, waterbody &
road name, air & water temperatures, weather, and habitat description),
4) record start time
5) turn water-edge rocks, counting the rocks turned both until an Eurycea
is found and the total for the search,
6) record finish time
7) report all these data to the Atlas
6) loop back to step 2
Habitats:
![]() |
typical Eurycea habitat in New Brunswick photo by Don McAlpine |
Jakob Mueller (see contributions below) finds the species' "Ontario
distribution... absolutely bizarre when considered with respect to their
distribution south of the Great Lakes." Despite ubiquity in the rest
of the State, the New York herp atlas has relatively few records in the
St-Lawrence Lowlands or along western Lake Ontario, suggesting that this
habitat itself may be inhospitable. The failure to spread into the cobbly
streams of the Oak Ridges Moraine may be due to a failure to get along Lake
Ontario, or may be due to historic northward restriction to sites with adequate
hibernacula, an attenuation we seem to see with other Salamanders, Snakes, and
water-hibernating Frogs. Climate change may be expected to lessen this
restriction (while its droughts may impose their own limits), which is a
pressing incentive to get a good documentation of the range as soon as
possible.
The prime habitat is small, high-gradient streams (=brooks)
under closed forest canopy, and rocky shores of clear-water rivers. This
habitat is more exposed during periods of low water. The Salamanders will be
under flat rocks positioned right at the water's edge so that the underside is
just wet enough; larvae will be underwater in these sites. The best places are
often where a stream is enlarging into a pool, or where there's seepage of
water through gravel into the stream. There's no space for a Salamander in
rocks that are solidly embedded in sand or clay, which is more often the case
with round rocks.
Associated species which should prompt searches are Brook
Trout and Cambarus bartonii Crayfish. A small aquarists' dipnet is the
best way to catch the escapees, and carrying such a net should be a sign that
an observer is focused on Eurycea. Conventional nocturnal terrestrial &
aquatic searches with lights will also turn up Eurycea if they're present (terrestrially during rainy or moist nights), and Amy
MacPherson's encounter points out that electrofishers should be alerted to
the need to report any Salamanders that they put up. It's important to be alert
to Eurycea occurrence in non-brook habitats, such Paul Catling's "fast
shallow water on rocky shore of the St. Lawrence River" and Matt
Keevil's "moist sedge-litter in a beaver meadow alongside a
meandering, sandy stream." Francis Cook and I recall Norris
Denman describing populations along the rocky shores of northern lakes. Matt
Ellerbeck (Salamander Man) suggests a public campaign that actively
promotes the reporting of sightings based on family visits to streams, in the
same way icefishers were the target of the Atlas' Mudpuppy campaign. Such a
campaign could also involve Unionids and Crayfish, and information about the
harm that piling rocks, or not returning them to their place, does to the
under-rock fauna.
Since there are populations in some of the streams that
drain into the St-Lawrence and Ottawa Rivers, these should be systematically
searched, as well as the shores of the rivers. The Jock River and Moose Creek in eastern Ontario point out that healthy populations can be separated by scores of kilometres.
Riffly areas in streams and rivers in the Cochrane District Clay Belt need to
be searched, and we'd need negative records of searches in the Oak Ridges
Moraine to be sure the species is absent there. Canoeists are notoriously hard
to divert from get-to-the-campsite-and-that-box-of-wine, but they should
be encouraged to turn cover wherever they land on rocky shores. The
Mattawa/Nipissing/French river system is implausibly devoid of records!
We need to know if and how well Eurycea coexists with Zebra Mussels, and
return visits to sites of previous records are essential for knowing how the
species is faring. It would be good for someone to replicate Matt Keevil's
GIS mapping of habitat suitability over the whole eastern portion of the
province, and then to publicize sites away from the known distribution that
seem like they might be promising.
The Ontario Herp Atlas should be the primary repository for everyone's Eurycea searches and observations. https://www.ontarionature.org/protect/species/herpetofaunal_atlas.php
In addition to my own experience, this strategy is based on contributions from colleagues in and outside Ontario, both contributed in response to facebook posts, and solicited by e-mail.
Jakob Mueller: The Ontario distribution of Eurycea
(as we understand it) is absolutely bizarre when considered with respect to
their distribution south of the Great Lakes. It's not as if streamside habitats
do not exist south of the Canadian Shield - they do - and it's not as if they
are restricted to the Appalachian corridor - they are widespread throughout New
York and Pennsylvania, and apparently not uncommon. To quote Harding: "Two-lined
Salamanders seem to tolerate a wider range of habitat situations than related
streamside species." Rivers and streams flowing northward into one of
the lower Great Lakes? Check. Rivers and streams flowing southward into one of
the lower Great Lakes? No, not so much.
David Seburn: It would be interesting to look at
detailed creek/stream mapping at all Eurycea locations to see if aquatic
connectivity explains the current distribution. Unfortunately some of the small
creeks I've found them in probably wouldn't even show up in a GIS layer.
Matt Keevil: My attempts at GIS habitat suitability
mapping in the end consisted of identifying locations in which moderate relief
and streams occurred together. This was based on Fred's suggested that Eurycea
were likely to occur where there was seepage into a stream. I had in mind
the disjunct Moose Creek site which I had never been to but which looks
distinctive on a topographic map because it is characterized by a stream
cutting through a moraine surrounded by an otherwise flat landscape. The
analysis was originally intended to cover all of Ontario but in the end was
constrained to just Eastern Ontario because of computational limitations. I
can't recall any quantitative results but in general I don't remember many
surprises. The highest scoring habitats were concentrated in the Frontenac Arch
and Algonquin Park which corresponds to the areas best represented in known
occurrences. Some marginal sites off the shield with known occurrences in
Eastern Ontario (such as the Jock River) did not stand out. Unfortunately, some
sites away from the known distribution seemed like they might be promising but
I neglected to ground truth them, and the files have been lost through
hard-drive crashes.
Salamander Man: Part of a provincial strategy to help
better understand the distribution of Eurycea in Ontario could be to
launch a campaign that actively engages and encourages families to report
sightings (similar to the effort that encouraged fishermen to report mudpuppys
that have been caught during ice fishing). Consider the fact that many children
play in creeks and streams. Many actively look for crayfish, and therefore are
turning over rocks - if the parents/guardians were aware that sightings of such
stream salamanders were significant they could then report incidental finds
that could arise. Furthermore, information could be included (similar to the
efforts focused on Hellbenders in the U.S), to return stream side rocks back to
where they where found if they have been flipped or moved, as these act as
important habitat
features for these salamanders.
Subject: RE: St Lawrence Eurycea -
At 04:46 PM 10/6/05 -0400, Paul Catling wrote:
> The salamander came from fast
shallow water on rocky shore of the St. Lawrence River at the edge of the
Gallop canal on the W side of Cardinal, Leeds and Grenville Co., 44.7785 N,
-75.3958 W, Coll.: P.M. Catling, 5 Oct 2005. This is a nice spot. I have
collected crayfish along the St. Lawrence a few times but this is the first
time I have seen a Sally. Not too many places with fast water right on the
shore. If another St. Lawrence record for Two-lined, may still be of interest
because older records may predate the Seaway??? 7 Sept 2016: The part of the Gallop Canal where I saw
it was not under a rock but in clear water near shore. There were rocks nearby.
There were also Round Gobies within a metre and I wondered whether they were a
particular threat. In the Champlain Bridge area of the Ottawa River and
upstream at Deschenes Rapids, I have found it under flat rivershore rocks with
some water beneath. Finding it may be a little more difficult where the rocks
are not flat.
[James Bay] Eurycea bislineata
Two-lined Salamander, Salamandre Ć deux lignes: The Two-lined Salamander was sought in
16 different rivers and brooks in QuƩbec. Habitat at most of them seemed
adequate for the species: clear running water, rocky shores, substrate of sand
and gravel, and adjacent forest, but the species was found in only 4 stations.
All were under rocks at the margin of rivers except for two larvae that were on
the bottom in water. The most northern record was made at Eastmain Rd, 18.1km
WNW the James Bay Road, where a rocky brown-water river runs under the road in
three large culverts... North of here, no specimens were found despite many
searches. Our observations are the most northern in the James Bay area, but the
species has been reported farther north east of our study area... Streams in
the Clay Belt are gravelly only in short stretches at riffles, and this may
explain the apparent absence of this salamander in the southernmost part of our
study area in QuƩbec. The only northern Ontario records are along the Abitibi
River, halfway between Fraserdale and Moosonee, in the Onakawana River, and
Mowbray Creek, a tributary of the Opisatika River. (Jean-FranƧois
Desroches, Isabelle Picard, Frederick W. Schueler, and Louis-Philippe Gagnon. A
Herpetological survey of the James Bay area of QuƩbec and Ontario. 2010
(2011). Canadian Field-Naturalist 124(4):299-315)
Isabelle Picard: My advice about methodology - Search
during summer in Salvelinus fontinalis (Brook Trout) habitat during low
water. Lift rocks on the bank. Check places where river is enlarging and where
there is a pool of water with rocks. Lift the rocks that show space under it.
Big flat rocks are the best.
An outlying
population: 17
September 2009 Canada: Ontario: Nipissing District: McDougal Creek, 0.1 km
SW Highway 63 bridge, Thorne. (25m waypoint), 46.69919° N 79.10077° W TIME:
1354-1407. AIR TEMP: 19°C, sunny, breezy. HABITAT: black cobble brook where it
runs into still water/wooded residential shores just above mouth in the Ottawa
River. OBSERVER: Frederick W. Schueler, Adam Zieleman. 2009/245/ba, Orconectes
propinquus (Crayfish). Two small pale individuals in gravel. 2009/245/bb, Eurycea
bislineata (Two-Lined Salamander). Two greyish individuals under cover in
gravel. This site also supported big Plecoptera (Stonefly) nymphs, but NO:Orconectes
immunis [present in the Ottawa River here, and partial to soft substrate]
seem to have taken over the creek.
Cambarus bartonii / Ontario: Nipissing District: Big Jocko River/Hwy 63, 7.5km WSW Eldee - small brownwater rock/sandy river, water 13.5 C, in rolling Picea-wooded Shield / 46.61239N 79.16985W / 7 Sep 2001 / Frederick W. Schueler field#: 2001/169/d - no explicit search for Eurycea, in this very suitable habitat, just 11 km SSW of where the McDougal Creek population was found 8 years later.
First modern specimens from an
outlying population, provoked by a decade of rumours from kids, and a 1928 NMC
collection: 13
July 2004 - Ontario: Stormont, Dundas & Glengarry Cos: Moose Creek below
St Polycarp Street, Moose Creek. (25m waypoint), 45.25859° N 74.97651° W
TIME: 1058-1204. AIR TEMP: 23°C, overcast, Beaufort light air. HABITAT: small
shaded bedrock/cobble-bottom brook in village. OBSERVER: Frederick W. Schueler.
2004/114/a, Eurycea bislineata (Two-Lined Salamander). 2/14ca/10ca
adult, larva, specimen, captured. Adults and larvae in and along stream, and
adults below spring inflow. Two adults were preserved, and about 12 more seen.
About 10 small larvae, ca 15 mm TL, were seen under rocks in the stream, all
the way from this waypoint to the St Polycarp Street culvert, and under rocks
in the shade inside the culvert. This waypoint, and the first place we found
the salamanders, and where they were most concentrated, was where 16° C water
(spring? artesian overflow?) falls 3 m from a plastic pipe onto a pile of rocks
and bricks separated from the stream by a stretch of bare bedrock. The flow is
maybe 100 ml/sec. This is just downstream from the footings of an old bridge,
on the west side. (Eurycea found again in Moose Creek, 324m upstream, on
7 Sept 2016).
Matt Keevil: Eurycea in Algonquin: I have never searched
systematically along the Highway 60 corridor but I have done casual directed
searches at some locations. I have found Eurycea eventually along all
the small streams that I have searched, but I have not been successful in every
search. Stream reaches differ in searchability in proportion to the prevalence
of flat rocks positioned just-so at the water's edge so that the underside is
just wet enough. Presumably, adult Eurycea use many types of refuge that
meet their needs such as crevices, root holes, and moist organic debris but
these other microhabitats are not vulnerable to targeted
searching. Searchability varies temporally within reaches as well; changing
water levels can substantially alter the number of suitable cover objects. A
pattern that I have noticed is that larva are more apparent than adults in very
small forest streams. In addition to typical habitat along small, high-gradient
streams, I have also found Eurycea along a rocky bank of the Petawawa
River and incidentally among moist sedge-litter in a beaver meadow alongside a
meandering, sandy stream. My encounters with Eurycea in Algonquin have
occurred within four different tertiary basins (Petawawa, Madawaska, and
Eastern Georgian Bay). I suspect that Eurycea is present in suitable
habitat throughout the Park, but this remains to confirmed.
Amy MacPherson: My two encounters with Eurycea
have been entirely serendipitous, since I have never undertaken any targeted
surveys for this species. The first occurred in July 2002 while conducting
field surveys for the Shields Creek subwatershed study, near the village of
Greely in Ottawa. We were using a backpack electrofisher to sample fish
communities in the creek and were quite surprised to discover a salamander in
our catch. This shallow section of Shields Creek passes through a woodland and
is heavily shaded, with abundant in-stream cover provided by rocks and woody
debris. It receives cool groundwater inputs from upwellings farther upstream.
No other salamanders were found during that study. Although apparently a common
species in parts of Ottawa and eastern Ontario, I did not see Eurycea
again until June 2015. During a school field trip to the Mill of Kintail
Conservation Area, in Lanark County, my daughter's class discovered four big
larval Eurycea, along with a wide variety of other benthic creatures, by
dipnetting in the rocky shallows of the Indian River.
When we first
visited the Jock River, at the [then] Hwy 16 bridge, in 1975, we found all three
native species of Crayfish — big pink & blue Orconectes virilis,
smaller dark-banded O. propinquus, and the shy, uniformly brown Cambarus
bartonii — and there were lots of slender, golden, Two-lined Salamanders, Eurycea
bislineata. In 1986, we first found the big rusty-coloured invasive
Crayfish, Orconectes rusticus, in the Rideau system there, and in a few
years O. virilis was no longer present, and O. propinquus was
swamped by hybridization with O. rusticus. How do you search for a shy,
rare, burrowing, Crayfish where it may be extirpated? Since our Cambarus
are more nocturnal than our Orconectes, on the evening of 20 August
1999, an EOBM field trip visited the site to see how many Crayfish would be
active on the bottom at night, and if these might include Cambarus bartonii.
There weren’t many Crayfish active, and all were O. rusticus, but
perhaps the Moon was too bright for full activity. Stew Hamill, with Katie &
Devon, found the first Eurycea, under a flat triangular stone at the
water’s edge, while Greg Hutton found slender larval Salamanders beside stones
in the gravel. The Salamanders live in the seepage area along the west shore of
the Jock, and we found them as far upstream as we searched, though this was
only about 100 m above the bridge (Schueler, Fred, and Aleta Karstad. 1999. Jock River field
trip. EOBM Almanack 1(4):8).
Greg Jongsma: Surveying for Eurycea in New
Brunswick, I focused on streams with closed canopies. My encounter rate
increased with increasing cover objects, usually flat stones 15 - 25 cm in
size. Individuals are quick to retreat into streams so I'd recommend flipping
objects in a direction away from streams so that the cover object itself serves
as a barrier to the salamander's retreat. I typically found individuals within
1 meter of the stream's edge. They do not appear sensitive to substrate like Desmognathus.
I have found Eurycea in muddy substrate and granular (pebbly) substrate
and everywhere in between. Further north in NB, I could find Eurycea
along large rivers with open canopies (example: Jacquet River), whereas I never
encountered individuals in similar open habitat further south (example: Saint
John River around Fredericton). We found individuals along the edge of
Antinouri Lake in northern NB. I expect water temperature is an important
predictor of whether individuals can occupy large, open rivers and lakes versus
closed canopy streams in NB. The presence of cover objects close to the waters
edge is the other important factor. A student could likely quantify these
habitat differences within a master's with the right study design. Putting the
project within the scope of climate change and adding a predictive modeling
aspect would likely make it attractive to funders.
Donald
F. McAlpine: I
can confirm Greg's observations, although I can't say I have necessarily found Eurycea
lacking in open canopy streams/rivers in southern New Brunswick. I have often found them associated with the
crayfish Cambarus bartonii - find C. bartonii in NB and you will
likely find E. bislineata there too. Like Greg, I look for flat rocks in
areas away from current. A small aquarists' dip net can be useful. I have found Eurycea in rock-margined
lakes (Ayers Lake, for example) and sometimes as much as 10-15 m back from the
water margin, but like Greg, more generally within a few meters of the
shoreline. Probably depends on the availability of cover objects, which tend to
be more frequent near the water margin anyway. Clear, rocky, streams tend to be
best, but I have collected this species from muddy areas along (clear) streams
as well.
Subject:
Re: Two-Lined Salamander at Almonte Hydro site
Date:
Fri, 3 Oct 2008 11:14:30 -0400
From:
MRPC INFO <info@mississippiriverpower.com>
To:
Frederick W Schueler <bckcdb@istar.ca>
Frederick,
Thank you for your concern and information. Your email has been forwarded to
our Environmental Consultant for his information and comments - Scott Newton.
<no
reply was received from the consultant>
On
Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 3:53 PM, Frederick W Schueler <bckcdb@istar.ca>
wrote:
Dear
Mississippi River Power & M. Sullivan & Son Ltd:
Visiting
Almonte on 17 September to check the status of the Two-Lined Salamander
population that I discovered in the seepage below the dam there in 1997, it
seemed, from what could be seen around the fencing that had been erected around
the site, that the entire area occupied by the Salamanders had been removed. As
you can see from the appended records, I was very careful to minimize
disturbance of the habitat of these Salamanders when monitoring their
persistence at the site, so it was shocking to see the entire surroundings
reduced to bare rock.
As
these records are publicly available from the Ontario Herpetofaunal Summary, I
trust you were aware of the Salamanders' presence, and can assure me that
either the seepage where they lived has not been disturbed by the construction
of the new hydro station, or that appropriate mitigation measures are underway.
Sincerely,
Frederick
W. Schueler, Ph.D.
Research
Curator
Bishops
Mills Natural History Centre
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: This
project consisted entirely of peer review, via e-mail and facebook, and
I thank Jakob Mueller, David, Matt Keevil, Matt Ellerback, Paul Catling,
Isabelle Picard, Amy MacPherson, Greg Jongsma, and Donald McAlpine
for their contributions, printed in the attached booklet. I'm probably
more guilty than most of being diverted by Crayfish and Unionids from proper
attention to Eurycea-hospitable stones, and I thank the dynamic maps of
the Ontario Amphibian & Reptile Atlas for illuminating the extent of
this guilt. Besides the authors of the written contributions, I've discussed this
with Tanya Pulfer & Emma Horrigan at the Atlas, and Wayne
Weller & Francis Cook. Bev Wigney & Susannah
Anderson, the foundresses of Rock Flipping Day, are a
constant inspiration to engage in appropriately undercover behaviour. Aleta
Karstad designed and produced the poster; the Eurycea image is from
Wikipedia.
Suggested citation: Schueler, Frederick W. (with contributions from Jakob Mueller, David
Seburn, Matt Keevil, Matt Ellerbeck, Paul Catling, Isabelle Picard, Amy
MacPherson, Greg Jongsma, & Donald McAlpine). 2016. A Provincial
Strategy for finding Eurycea. blog post of poster paper,
Canadian Herpetological Society, Third Annual Meeting at Toronto Zoo,
Scarborough, Ontario, 17-19 September. http://doingnaturalhistory.blogspot.com/2016/10/two-lined-salamander-survey-protocol.html
here's an e-mail to Algonquin to Adirondacks Collaborative from January 2016 that was part of the triggering for this project:
ReplyDeleteQuoting Cameron Smith :
> I've been looking for a study that grapples with the level and type of animal migration we might expect in the Frontenac Arch as a result of climate change.
* one creepy thing (or 'reminder of the importance of historical contingency,' as Steve Gould would have phrased it) about this part of the world is the way we can see, from the Ontario side, habitat occupied by three spectacular stream Salamanders - Desmognatus fuscus, Desmognatus ochrophaeus, and Gyrinophilus porphyriticus (Spring Salamander)) which have never made it across the Saint Lawrence, and which would certainly do well, even now, in the rugged topography of the Fontenac Axis/Arch. I'm sure there are many Gastropod and other invertebrate species in similar situations.
If we're thinking about A 2 A porosity and global warming we've got the problem that the Adirondacks are an outlier of borealish habitat, while the Axis/Arch is anomalously rugged for its latitude in Ontario, so there are few or no Mammal species that could find a northern refuge by crossing a 401 overpass, and southern Snakes and Turtles tend to be present on both sides of the River.
So we're in a different situation from Y2Y [Yellowstone to Yukon] or a hypothetical southern Saskatchewan porosity corridor - just providing naturalized habitat won't allow southern species to sweep north as the climate warms. The Salamander and (presumed) other forest-floor species were stopped by the Saint Lawrence from occupying habitat here that even now, with the warming that has occurred since the Little Ice Age, is almost certainly suitable for them. Without anthropogenic habitat destruction these species might have come around the Niagara peninsula (the two Desmognathus (Dusky Salamander) have tiny populations on the Ontario side of the Niagara Gorge), up the Escarpment, and along the Oak Ridges Moraine to the Land Between, across the Arch/Axis, and up the Ottawa Valley, perhaps over the course of 10 K years.
With anthropogenic habitat destruction, this scenario is much more unlikely, and would certainly go much more slowly, and certainly vastly slower than climate change will make northern habitats suitable for these species. There are also tales of widespread overall declines of Salamanders, making northern habitats potentially important refugia for Salamander species.
So what can we do regarding these historically limited species, short of scooping up Gyrinophilus (Spring Salamander) and Desmognathus (Dusky Salamander) in northern NY, and releasing them in Lyn Creek?
I think the first thing would be surveys of Salamanders and Gastropods on both sides of the river to see what's where now. The one species of stream Salamander on the Ontario side and along the river on the New York side is Eurycea bislineata (Two-Lined Salamander). In Ontario, probably due to rugged topography and Ontario unfamiliarity with stream Salamanders, the distribution of this species, and its western limit somewhere in western Leeds County, is very poorly sampled. I'm pretty sure, for example, that my record of Eurycea from Golden Creek below Lyn Falls, for example, is the first from this drainage basin - http://karstaddailypaintings.blogspot.ca/2012/12/first-step-of-lyn-falls-in-winter-oil.html - I will get the records from the Herp Atlas.
It's curious how the things one has been doing since boyhood always prove to be the most important to study in any situation. - fred.