THREE CASE STUDIES OF THE EFFECT OF WILDFIRE ON THE JEMEZ MOUNTAINS SALAMANDER (PLETHODON NEOMEXICANUS): MICROHABITAT TEMPERATURES, SIZE DISTRIBUTIONS, AND A HISTORICAL LOCALITY PERSPECTIVE

Fire regimes in North America, including the American Southwest, have undergone relatively dramatic shifts in the last century, resulting in novel stand-replacing fires, which are changing landscapes in unprecedented ways. We investigated some possible effects of these landscape changes on a terrestrial plethodontid salamander (Plethodon neomexicanus). We investigated microhabitat temperatures in 4 burn-severity types following recent fires. Temperatures were significantly greater in high-severity and moderate-severity burn areas than in low-severity and unburned areas. We present presence-absence data from 4 burn-severity types that were previously documented as having salamanders present. The proportions of presence and absence were similar for all severity types. Finally, we used data from a 9-year demographic study of P. neomexicanus from 2 locations, where one location was burned in a wildfire halfway through the study, to measure possible effects of fire. We compared salamander size distributions and body condition pre-fire and post-fire within the burned site, and the unburned site was used as a reference location. Salamanders at the burned site had a shift in size distribution, with an increase in observed juveniles and a decrease in observed adults 2 y post-fire relative to itself. No significant changes were measured at the unburned site. We did not observe a significant effect in salamander body condition. Overall, we conclude that salamander surveys are valuable for determining presence-absence, but alone are ineffective and not appropriate for monitoring or measuring populations after a disturbance. We suggest that future studies investigating the effects of disturbance on terrestrial plethodontid salamanders use size distribution and potentially body condition data to monitor for effects within populations, in conjunction with measuring environmental parameters for understanding causal agents.