Evaluating artificial shelter arrays as a minimally invasive monitoring tool for the hellbender Cryptobranchus alleganiensis
| dc.contributor.author | Jachowski, Catherine M. Bodinof | en |
| dc.contributor.author | Ross, Beth E. | en |
| dc.contributor.author | Hopkins, William A. | en |
| dc.contributor.department | Fish and Wildlife Conservation | en |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2021-02-26T14:28:29Z | en |
| dc.date.available | 2021-02-26T14:28:29Z | en |
| dc.date.issued | 2020-02-13 | en |
| dc.description.abstract | Hellbenders Cryptobranchus alleganiensis are critically imperiled amphibians throughout the eastern USA. Rock-lifting is widely used to monitor hellbenders but can severely disturb habitat. We asked whether artificial shelter occupancy (the proportion of occupied shelters in an array) would function as a proxy for hellbender abundance and thereby serve as a viable alternative to rock-lifting. We hypothesized that shelter occupancy would vary spatially in response to hellbender density, natural shelter density, or both, and would vary temporally with hellbender seasonal activity patterns and time since shelter deployment. We established shelter arrays (n = 30 shelters each) in 6 stream reaches and monitored them monthly for up to 2 yr. We used Bayesian mixed logistic regression and model ranking criteria to assess support for hypotheses concerning drivers of shelter occupancy. In all reaches, shelter occupancy was highest from June-August each year and was higher in Year 2 relative to Year 1. Our best-supported model indicated that the extent of boulder and bedrock (hereafter, natural shelter) in a reach mediated the relationship between hellbender abundance and shelter occupancy. More explicitly, shelter occupancy was positively correlated with abundance when natural shelter covered <20% of a reach, but uncorrelated with abundance when natural shelter was more abundant. While shelter occupancy should not be used to infer variation in hellbender relative abundance when substrate composition varies among reaches, we showed that artificial shelters can function as valuable monitoring tools when reaches meet certain criteria, though regular shelter maintenance is critical. | en |
| dc.description.admin | Public domain – authored by a U.S. government employee | en |
| dc.description.notes | The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, the Fralin Life Science Institute and the George Washington and Jefferson National Forest provided funding for this project. This work would not have been possible without vision, creativity and hard work of J. Briggler. Field support was provided by Brittney Hopkins Coe, Hank Vogel, Jeronimo DaSilva, John Hallagan, Daniel Medina, Jaun Botero, Valentina Alaasam, and Arden Blumenthal. We are extremely grateful to the private landowners in southwest Virginia who allowed us access to streams and to JayMartin, Dawn Kirk and additional US Forest Service staff for their cooperation and assistance installing shelters. Finally, we thank J. D. Kleopfer for his support of this work. All research was conducted under Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries collection permits 035981 and 048093 and complied with Virginia Tech Institutional Animal Care and Use protocols 08-085, 11-140, and 13-128. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the US Government. | en |
| dc.description.sponsorship | Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; Fralin Life Science Institute; George Washington and Jefferson National Forest | en |
| dc.format.mimetype | application/pdf | en |
| dc.identifier.doi | https://doi.org/10.3354/esr01014 | en |
| dc.identifier.eissn | 1613-4796 | en |
| dc.identifier.issn | 1863-5407 | en |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10919/102449 | en |
| dc.identifier.volume | 41 | en |
| dc.language.iso | en | en |
| dc.rights | Public Domain | en |
| dc.rights.uri | http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/ | en |
| dc.subject | Population monitoring | en |
| dc.subject | Nest box | en |
| dc.subject | Substrate | en |
| dc.subject | Bayesian mixed models | en |
| dc.subject | Occupancy | en |
| dc.subject | Artificial cover | en |
| dc.title | Evaluating artificial shelter arrays as a minimally invasive monitoring tool for the hellbender Cryptobranchus alleganiensis | en |
| dc.title.serial | Endangered Species Research | en |
| dc.type | Article - Refereed | en |
| dc.type.dcmitype | Text | en |
| dc.type.dcmitype | StillImage | en |
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