
Posted by Kelly Saquin (U. Pittsburgh)
It was the second day of our amphibian sampling and Dani and i were a little skeptical. The preliminary sampling of this site was not very promising and when we set our transects we only found toads. But, we set out with confidence we would find some frogs and salamanders. In the 400 meter length of the Wallace Woods stream we sampled, only 5 toads were found. Five small American toads in 400 meters. Due to the sandy soil composition we did not expect much, but we did expect a little more than this. After discussing this for awhile we concluded that there are most likely a variety of factors that make this stream a non ideal habitat. As mentioned before, the soil composition is mainly sand. Another reason is that this stream floods a lot during hard rains. This would make it difficult for a semi-aquatic amphibian to set up camp, not knowing when the place will flood. I am very interested to see what the other groups who sampled Wallace Woods found. We were constrained by the 3 meters from the bank so there could be terrestrial salamanders living deeper in the woods.
It was the second day of our amphibian sampling and Dani and i were a little skeptical. The preliminary sampling of this site was not very promising and when we set our transects we only found toads. But, we set out with confidence we would find some frogs and salamanders. In the 400 meter length of the Wallace Woods stream we sampled, only 5 toads were found. Five small American toads in 400 meters. Due to the sandy soil composition we did not expect much, but we did expect a little more than this. After discussing this for awhile we concluded that there are most likely a variety of factors that make this stream a non ideal habitat. As mentioned before, the soil composition is mainly sand. Another reason is that this stream floods a lot during hard rains. This would make it difficult for a semi-aquatic amphibian to set up camp, not knowing when the place will flood. I am very interested to see what the other groups who sampled Wallace Woods found. We were constrained by the 3 meters from the bank so there could be terrestrial salamanders living deeper in the woods.