Meeting Abstract
Climate interacts with an organism’s physiology to influence its distribution and fitness. For animals with well understood physiologies, this interaction allows for prediction of distribution or fitness of an organism under certain climatic conditions through biophysical models. However, these models can be limited by not including geographic variation in physiologies and differences in behavior. Individual or Agent Based Models (IBM/ABM) combined with biophysical models allow for incorporation of geographic, individual, and behavioral differences. The high variance in elevation in Southern Appalachia has created broad moisture gradients throughout the landscape. Within these gradients exists a patchy distribution of midstory canopy plants. Midstory canopy plants are known to buffer climatic variation, however the influence of the midstory canopy has not been studied for many fauna. Salamander activity is governed by water loss and their well-studied physiologies make them ideal test subjects to study midstory canopy affects on fitness and survival along a moisture gradient. I report on a preliminary biophysically based IBM for Plethodon shermani. This model suggests a strong influence of the presence of a midstory canopy on salamander fitness, especially for juveniles. Using an IBM framework allows for future inclusion of behavioral, geographic, and individual variation.
