Meeting Abstract
P1.36 Friday, Jan. 4 Co-occurrence of Anurans in Freshwater Habitats on a Mid-Atlantic Coast Barrier Island MOORE , JT*; BARRILE, GM; BOWER, CD; HRANITZ, JM; Bloomsburg University, Bloomsburg jtm18586@huskies.bloomu.edu
The small size of barrier islands and the few freshwater habitats available on them, along with the increased sensitivity anurans have to salinity and changes in their environment, result in a depauperate anuran community. The scarcity of suitable habitats should lead to competition due to niche overlap among the different anuran species for suitable breeding habitats. The purpose of this research was to determine what species of anurans are present in Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge (Virginia) and which of these species potentially compete as indicated by co-occurrence of adults or larvae at breeding sites. Interspecific competition for suitable breeding habitat between different anuran species was assessed by conducting a male-advertisement call survey and a vernal pool anuran larval survey. The male advertisement call survey sampled 13 sites along a transect for 3 minutes at each site between May and July 2012. The species were identified by their advertisement call and relative abundance was estimated by using the Wisconsin frog call index. The anuran larval survey was conducted by sampling larvae from vernal pools. The male advertisement call survey detected three anuran species with different levels of activity on different nights. The number of species present during the summer activity differed among the 13 sites. In contrast, the larval survey found two species, Anaxyrus fowleri and Hyla cinerea, in eight vernal pools. The distributions of A. fowleri and H. cinerea larvae overlapped 100%, indicating co-occurrence of these two species in our pilot study. These results suggest island anurans converge upon sources of freshwater, possibly because so few sources of freshwater exist or because there is little distinction between habitats surrounding sources of freshwater.
