Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T02:36:36.989Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Effects of time since urbanization on anuran community composition in remnant urban ponds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 June 2010

SARA A. GAGNÉ*
Affiliation:
Geomatics and Landscape Ecology Research Laboratory, Department of Biology, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, CanadaK1S 5B6
LENORE FAHRIG
Affiliation:
Geomatics and Landscape Ecology Research Laboratory, Department of Biology, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, CanadaK1S 5B6
*
*Correspondence: Dr Sara Gagné Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Russell Laboratories, 1630 Linden Drive, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA e-mail: [email protected]

Summary

Low-density residential development, the fastest growing land use in the USA, is increasingly occurring adjacent to protected areas and in areas of high biodiversity. Thus, determining the environmental impacts, including the cumulative impacts, of proposed residential developments is a pressing challenge. The relative abundance and species richness of anurans in 19 ponds surrounded by landscapes with varying ages of residential development were measured, while endeavouring to control for local habitat quality effects on the anurans. Age of residential development was a predictor in the best models describing the responses of four individual anuran species and total anuran relative abundance. In particular, all of the best models of gray treefrog Hyla versicolor relative abundance included age of residential development as a predictor. Present-day anuran communities in remnant urban ponds are evidently responding to the effects of residential development that occurred up to 54 years in the past.

Type
Papers
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Boone, M.D., Semlitsch, R.D., Little, E.E. & Doyle, M.C. (2007) Multiple stressors in amphibian communities: effects of chemical contamination, bullfrogs, and fish. Ecological Applications 17: 291301.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brown, D.G., Johnson, K.M., Loveland, T.R. & Theobald, D.M. (2005) Rural land-use trends in the conterminous United States, 1950–2000. Ecological Applications 15: 18511863.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burnham, K.P. & Anderson, D.R. (2002) Model Selection and Multimodel Inference: A Practical Information-Theoretic Approach, 2nd edition. New York, NY, USA: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Burton, E.C., Gray, M.J., Schmutzer, A.C. & Miller, D.L. (2010) Differential responses of postmetamorphic amphibians to cattle grazing in wetlands. The Journal of Wildlife Management 73: 269277.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carr, L.W. & Fahrig, L. (2001) Effect of road traffic on two amphibian species of differing vagility. Conservation Biology 15: 10711078.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Council on Environmental Quality (1997) Considering cumulative effects under the National Environmental Policy Act [www document]. URL http://www.nepa.gov/nepa/ccenepa/ccenepa.htmGoogle Scholar
Cousins, S.A.O., Ohlson, H. & Eriksson, O. (2007) Effects of historical and present fragmentation on plant species diversity in semi-natural grasslands in Swedish rural landscapes. Landscape Ecology 22: 723730.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crooks, K.R. (2002) Relative sensitivities of mammalian carnivores to habitat fragmentation. Conservation Biology 16: 488502.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Czech, B., Krausman, P.R. & Devers, P.K. (2000) Economic associations among causes of species endangerment in the United States. BioScience 50: 593601.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, C. (2004) Declining downwind: amphibian population declines in California and historical pesticide use. Ecological Applications 14: 18921902.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dorrough, J. & Ash, J.E. (1999) Using past and present habitat to predict the current distribution and abundance of a rare cryptic lizard, Delma impar (Pygopodidae). Australian Journal of Ecology 24: 614624.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Environment Canada (2005) Urban biodiversity [www document]. URL http://www.cbin.ec.gc.ca/enjeux-issues/urbain-urban.cfm?lang=engGoogle Scholar
Ernoult, A., Tremauville, Y., Cellier, D., Margerie, P., Langlois, E. & Alard, D. (2006) Potential landscape drivers of biodiversity components in a flood plain: past or present patterns? Biological Conservation 127: 117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ewers, R.M. & Didham, R.K. (2006) Confounding factors in the detection of species responses to habitat fragmentation. Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 81: 117142.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Findlay, C.S. & Bourdages, J. (2000) Response time of wetland biodiversity to road construction on adjacent lands. Conservation Biology 14: 8694.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freda, J. & Taylor, D.H. (1992) Behavioral response of amphibian larvae to acidic water. Journal of Herpetology 26: 429433.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gagné, S.A. & Fahrig, L. (2007) Effect of landscape context on anuran communities in breeding ponds in the National Capital Region, Canada. Landscape Ecology 22: 205215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, J.P., Whiteleather, K.K. & Schueler, F.W. (2005) Changes in frog and toad populations over 30 years in New York State. Ecological Applications 15: 11481157.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grafen, A. & Hails, R. (2002) Modern Statistics for the Life Sciences. New York, NY, USA: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hansen, A.J., Knight, R.L., Marzluff, J.M., Powell, S., Brown, K., Gude, P.H. & Kingsford, J. (2005) Effects of exurban development on biodiversity: patterns, mechanisms, and research needs. Ecological Applications 15: 18931905.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrell, F.E., Lee, K.L., Califf, R.M., Pryor, D.B. & Rosati, R.A. (1984) Regression modelling strategies for improved prognostic prediction. Statistics in Medicine 3: 143152.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hazell, D., Hero, J.-M., Lindenmayer, D. & Cunningham, R. (2004) A comparison of constructed and natural habitat for frog conservation in an Australian agricultural landscape. Biological Conservation 119: 6171.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hecnar, S.J. & M'Closkey, R.T. (1997) The effects of predatory fish on amphibian species richness and distribution. Biological Conservation 79: 123131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hecnar, S.J. & M'Closkey, R.T. (1998) Species richness patterns of amphibians in southwestern Ontario ponds. Journal of Biogeography 25: 763772.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, J.R., Knouft, J.H. & Semlitsch, R.D. (2007) Sex and seasonal differences in the spatial terrestrial distribution of gray treefrog (Hyla versicolor) populations. Biological Conservation 140: 250258.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knick, S.T. & Rotenberry, J.T. (2000) Ghosts of habitat past: contributions of landscape change to current habitats used by shrubland birds. Ecology 81: 220227.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knutson, M.G., Sauer, J.R., Olsen, D.A., Mossman, M.J., Hemesath, L.M. & Lannoo, M.J. (1999) Effects of landscape composition and wetland fragmentation on frog and toad abundance and species richness in Iowa and Wisconsin, USA. Conservation Biology 13: 14371446.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Löfvenhaft, K., Runborg, S. & Sjögren-Gulve, P. (2004) Biotope patterns and amphibian distribution as assessment tools in urban landscape planning. Landscape and Urban Planning 68: 403442.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacKenzie, D.I., Nichols, J.D., Lachman, G.B., Droege, S., Royle, J.A. & Langtimm, C.A. (2002) Estimating site occupancy rates when detection probabilities are less than one. Ecology 83: 22482255.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, J.R., Wiens, J.A., Hobbs, N.T. & Theobald, D.M. (2003) Effects of human settlement on bird communities in lowland riparian areas of Colorado (USA). Ecological Applications 13: 10411059.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pearman, P.B. (1993) Effects of habitat size on tadpole populations. Ecology 74: 19821991.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pillsbury, F.C. & Miller, J.R. (2008) Habitat and landscape characteristics underlying anuran community structure along an urban-rural gradient. Ecological Applications 18: 11071118.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pope, S.E., Fahrig, L. & Merriam, N.G. (2000) Landscape complementation and metapopulation effects on leopard frog populations. Ecology 81: 24982508.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Price, S.J., Marks, D.R., Howe, R.W., Hanowski, J.M. & Niemi, G.J. (2004) The importance of spatial scale for conservation and assessment of anuran populations in coastal wetlands of the western Great Lakes, USA. Landscape Ecology 20: 441454.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quinn, R.P. & Keough, M.J. (2002) Experimental design and data analysis for biologists. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riffell, S.K., Gutzwiller, K.J. & Anderson, S.H. (1996) Does repeated human intrusion cause cumulative declines in avian richness and abundance? Ecological Applications 6: 492505.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rubbo, M.J. & Kiesecker, J.M. (2005) Amphibian breeding distribution in an urbanised landscape. Conservation Biology 19: 504511.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skelly, D.K., Bolden, S.R., Holland, M.P., Freidenburg, L.K., Friedenfelds, N.A. & Malcolm, T.R. (2006) Urbanization and disease in amphibians. In: Disease Ecology: Community Structure and Pathogen Dynamics, ed. Collinge, S.K. & Ray, C., pp. 153167. Cary, USA: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Underwood, A.J. (1992) Beyond BACI: the detection of environmental impacts on populations in the real, but variable, world. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 161: 145178.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vatnick, I., Brodkin, M.A., Simon, M.P., Grant, B.W., Conte, C.R., Gleave, M., Myers, R. & Sadoff, M.M. (1999) The effects of exposure to mild acidic conditions on adult frogs (Rana pipiens and Rana clamitans): mortality rates and pH preferences. Journal of Herpetology 33: 370374.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walsh, C.J., Roy, A.H., Feminella, J.W., Cottingham, P.D., Groffman, P.M. & Morgan, II, R.P. (2005) The urban stream syndrome: current knowledge and the search for a cure. Journal of the North American Benthological Society 24: 706723.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zelmer, D.A., Wetzel, E.J. & Esch, G.W. (1999) The role of habitat in structuring Halipegus occidualis metapopulations in the green frog. The Journal of Parasitology 85: 1924.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Supplementary material: File

Gagne supplementary material

Appendix.doc

Download Gagne supplementary material(File)
File 121.9 KB