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Osteopilus Septentrionalis in a Mesic Hammock North-Central Florida

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Osteopilus Septentrionalis in a Mesic Hammock North-Central Florida Patterns of landscape occupancy of Hyla cinerea and Osteopilus septentrionalis in a mesic hammock North-Central Florida Abstract Post breeding migration from wetlands into drier upland habitat is a behavior shared by many amphibians. Unlike that of breeding habitat, very few studies determine what factors are important in how amphibians select this non-breeding habitat. We explored how amphibians of the family Hylidae occupied a mesic hardwood hammock in north-central Florida, considering differences using distance from breeding pond and amount of canopy cover. We are particularly interested in the habitat of the native green tree frog (Hyla cinerea)—GTF—and the invasive Cuban tree frog (Osteopilus septentrionalis)—CTF. We used an array of PVC pipe refugia to sample the uplands outwards from the edge of water. We found that there was little movement of individuals between transects and there was no movement between the two ponds. There was no apparent pattern of where juvenile or adult H. cinerea were found in regard to distance from water. We collected presence data for each of the 54 pipe “sites” and ran an occupancy model and found that distance from the water is a good predictor of where H. cinerea can be found during the nonbreeding season, but not canopy cover. Unfortunately, we were unable to collect enough data for O. septentrionalis to draw any conclusions about their occupancy in the hammock. Introduction Amphibia as a Linnaean class and a unique phylogenetic clade faces worldwide decline and extinction (Maccallum 2007). Amphibians face many barriers to survival through the anthropogenic sixth mass extinction; habitat loss and fragmentation, virulent chytrid fungus epidemics, pollution, global climate change, and even the spread of new predators and competitors from around the world. There is a desperate and growing need for amphibian conservation and research that will guide effective management (Moore 2008). Observing and measuring spatial pattern is a vital part of landscape ecology and is the basis of protected area planning. Much of the focus on spatial pattern lies on the breeding habitat of amphibians and its relation to reproductive processes (Garton & Brandon 1975, Gerdhardt 1987, Salinas 2006). This focus on amphibian breeding habitat biases what we think is important to the life history of species (Strofer 2003), which may have important implications to monitoring amphibians and protecting critical habitat. The American green tree frog is a cosmopolitan anuran throughout the eastern United States and is the only member of the genus Hyla in this region that breeds in permanent bodies of water with predatory fish. The species is very widespread and subject to climatic and spatial variability throughout its range (Gunzburger 2006). Although this species isn’t a species of conservation concern—listed as Least Concern (LC) by the IUCN—populations of this North American hylid tend to decline or disappear when the large, invasive Cuban tree frog is present (Meshaka 2001). Meshaka (2001) details the invasion success of this large Caribbean hylid, owing its success to: 1) large body size, 2) year-round opportunistic breeding, 3) large clutch sizes, 4) and generalist diet. Cuban tree frog tadpoles and adults have been found with native anurans in their stomach contents (Meshaka 2001, Hoffman 2007, and Granatosky 2011), cause breeding disruptions through amplexing other species (Salinas 2006). Despite overlap in the range and habitat of GTF and CTF, there appear to be important differences: GTFs occupy permanent water bodies and open canopy vegetation (Meshaka 2001, Horn et al 2005, and Gunsburger 2006), whereas CTF prefer to breed in temporary aquatic habitats and closed canopy forests (Meshaka 2001 and Salinas 2006). Canopy cover appears to be an important, phenomenological factor in the distribution of hylids (Demaynadier & Hunter 1999, Horn et al 2005, and Binckley & Resetarits 2007), perhaps for food availability, water conservation, or cover from predators. When breeding season ends for green tree frogs, adults and recent juveniles migrate into upland habitat away from breeding sites (Garton & Brandon 1975, Demaynadier & Hunter 1999, and Gunsburger 2006), and thus distance away from the breeding habitat may be an interesting parameter of seasonal amphibian habitat. We will attempt characterize the occupancy of wetlands by green tree frog (Hyla cinerea), GTF, and Cuban tree frog (Osteopilus septentrionalis), CTF, in Alachua county using measures of canopy cover and distance from the breeding habitat where we find individuals. With this information we hope to find patterns of occupancy that can help us define habitat requirements of both species and develop methods for characterizing non-breeding habitat in anurans. We will measure canopy cover and record at what distance we find frogs in PVC refugia on private property in Gainesville, Florida. We hypothesize that we will find that green tree frogs occupy pipes further from the water than CTF and that there will be spatial differences between adult and juvenile GTFs. Methods Data were collected through nonrandom sampling during the non-breeding season. We selected a site on private property—with the owner’s permission—that during the breeding season had three permanent to semi-permanent bodies of water where breeding choruses of various species could be heard, including our target species—Hyla cinerea and Osteopilus septentrionalis. The site is located in north central Florida in Gainesville, Alachua county just north and adjacent to Payne’s Prairie State Park. The predominant habitat type according to the vegetation present and in reference to the Florida Natural Areas Inventory (FNAI 2010) appears to be a mesic hardwood hammock disturbed with coral ardisia (Ardisia crenata), which surrounds each of the breeding ponds and has a patch of pine flatwoods separating some of the ponds. Boughton (2000) and Hoffman (2007) have shown that PVC pipe act as refugia and are good sampling tools when you are aware of the sampling bias between species. We set up 54 PVC pipes—1.25 diameter approximately 40 inches in length, cut at a diagonal at the base—in a total of 9 transects around Pond B and C (Figure 1), with 3 transects surrounding Pond B and 6 transects surrounding Pond C. Pond A was not used for the study because some regions were inaccessible and it was near a busy road, which could interfere with dispersal. Each transect consisted of 6 PVC pipes each. The pipes were placed in arrays at 10 meters intervals, with the first pipe placed at the water’s edge. Each transect was placed a minimum of 10 meters away from the next transect over in pond B, and a minimum of 20 meters away from each other in pond C. We collected data on 5 different trap days. On each sampling day, we used pipe plungers made with a ½ inch thick wooden dowel approximately 4 feet in length with spongy material cut in a cylindrical shape 2 inches tall about the same diameter as the PVC pipe (or slightly smaller)—stuck onto one end of the pipe with the dowel through the middle and hot glued in place—to remove the frogs from the pipe and put them into plastic Ziploc bags. We then identified the species of frog, and clipped the toes of Hyla cinerea and Osteopilus septentrionalis according to the diagram in Figure 2 in order to identify what transect they were located in. We also took note of whether the individuals were juvenile or adult by relative size (body length and mass). After identification and clipping, frogs were released back into the same pipe that they were originally found. We took note of frogs that were found to have moved across transects. Throughout the study we also found squirrel tree frogs (Hyla squirella)—STF— and pine woods tree frogs (Hyla femoralis). When species of frogs that were not targeted for the study were captured, we documented their presence but did not mark them and they were re-released in the same general location. We tested the relationship between life stages (juvenile or adult) and between the two species and distance from water by setting up 54 ground-placed PVC pipes at 20-meter intervals beginning from water’s edge. We separated the PVC pipes into 9 different transects and marked H. cinerea and O. septentrionalis individuals by transect group in order to identify in which transect they were found. We modeled occupancy as single season simple models in the PRESENCE software using canopy cover and distance as covariates of occupancy(훙) and the different trap days as a covariate of detection(p), treating each of the 54 pipes and a 5-meter radius as an individual site. Figure 1. Study site in Gainesville, Florida detailing the locations of the ponds on the property. Only ponds B and C were used in this study due to flooding during the rainy season at pond A that prevented setting PVC pipe transects. Figure 2. Toe clip mark codes where each number represents the corresponding transect. All frogs found within a single transect will receive a group mark to note movement between transects and ponds. (Artist: Keara Clancey, University of Florida) Figure 3. We plotted the distribution of canopy cover values across each of the 54 pipe refugia and described 3 classes of canopy cover to use in analysis. We opted not to use a continuous canopy cover measurement due to gaps amount of cover and we did not use a binary model of “open” or “closed canopy” because we did not find a strong value that demarcated these two classes. Figure 4. We plotted the distribution of canopy cover values and instead described 5 classes of canopy cover to use as a comparison in the analysis. We found that this classification system had less significance than that of the 3- class description.
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