Update (finally)

Yikes! I don't know why, but time just seems to be getting away from me here. I have good intentions to post regularly, but I'm either busy with work or distracted by other things in the evenings.

I'm going to start off with a description of the project, and basically why we're doing what we're doing. Feel free to ask questions and I'll try to clarify anything that isn't clear.

The project is with amphibians (specifically wood frogs, spotted salamanders, and blue-spotted salamanders) that live in vernal pools in Maine (pools of water that form in the spring and then dry up during the summer). We also catch non-target species, such as newts, redback salamanders, toads, peepers, leopard frogs, green frogs, pickerel frogs, and bullfrogs.

We have a basic sampling protocol from which a variety of data can be examined. We've erected a fence around the (11) wetlands with pitfall traps at intervals around the fence, both inside and outside. The idea is that the amphibians try to get into the wetland, are blocked by the fence, and walk along the edge until they fall into a trap. We take them out, record the species and sex, and place them in the water inside the fence. When they come out, we record species and sex for everybody, and for our target species also mass and snout-vent length, and we clip one of their toes (different toe at each wetland) so that we can note which ones return in other years.

We also record rainfall and high/low temperatures once a week, water chemistry once a month, and do egg mass counts twice.

So, the main focus of the study is to determine how large of a buffer of forest is necessary for logging to not affect the amphibians. We have controls (not logged), 30 meter buffers, and 100 meter buffers. However, there are so many other factors that affect basically EVERYTHING that I have no idea how anything meaningful will be found in the data. Some years the vernal pools dry up early and none of the tadpoles survive. And all the sites have very different features. It will be interesting.

There are other smaller studies that have been done in the past by graduate students, including things like where the metamorphs go once they leave the pools, if there is significance to the direction the amphibians take when they leave (we often find piles of them in one trap, with only a few or none in the rest of the traps), and how the insects in the area affect the amphibians (apparently some of the insect larval forms eat the tadpoles).

The days are occasionally long (our longest so far was 12.5 hours), especially in the spring when we have to open all of the wetlands (stand up the fences, open and bail out the traps). Because we're driving on old logging dirt roads they're very muddy, and we have to sometimes hike a few miles to get to the wetland (carrying stakes, staple guns, a mallet, and sometimes an axe). We also have some long days in the spring when the amphibians are either coming in or going out (which they seem to do en masse). Right now it's pretty quiet, and we've been doing all of the wetlands in one day (8-9 hours) and then either taking the next day off or working on fence repair.

Feel free to ask questions about the study! Or life in general up here.

Sorry for the picture-less entries, I'll try to steal some of my roommates' pictures to post soon!