Response of Two Terrestrial Salamander Species to Spring Burning in the Sierra Nevada, California

Response of Two Terrestrial Salamander Species to Spring Burning in the Sierra Nevada, California
Author: Karen Elizabeth Bagne
Publisher:
Total Pages: 12
Release: 2009
Genre: Ensatina eschscholtzi
ISBN:

Terrestrial salamanders may be vulnerable to prescribed fire applications due to their moist, permeable skin and limited mobility. We present data collected on terrestrial salamander populations in a ponderosa pine-dominated forest in the Sierra Nevada where fire was applied in the spring. Two species, Sierra ensatina (Ensatina eschscholtzi platensis) and gregarious slender salamander (Batrachoseps gregarius), were captured under coverboards. Capture rates of ensatinas declined within the first 2 years after burning, but postfire captures were similar to or greater than capture rates on unburned plots. Capture rates of slender salamanders were more variable, but high capture rates on burned plots suggest they persist following fire. We captured fewer small ensatinas within 2 years of burning, but sizes of slender salamanders pre and post burning were similar. Salamanders were captured in both closed and open canopy forests, and presence under individual coverboards was associated with deeper litter and greater canopy closure. Coverboards may be avoided for a year or more by gregarious slender salamanders, and capture rates were highest during winter and early spring. Though sample sizes were small and conclusions should be made with caution, results indicated no strong adverse effects from spring burning. Suitable habitat may have been maintained by the patchy burn pattern characteristic of spring burns.

The Mountains of California

The Mountains of California
Author: John Muir
Publisher:
Total Pages: 406
Release: 1907
Genre: California
ISBN:

Famed naturalist John Muir (1838-1914) came to Wisconsin as a boy and studied at the University of Wisconsin. He first came to California in 1868 and devoted six years to the study of the Yosemite Valley. After work in Nevada, Utah, and Colorado, he returned to California in 1880 and made the state his home. One of the heroes of America's conservation movement, Muir deserves much of the credit for making the Yosemite Valley a protected national park and for alerting Americans to the need to protect this and other natural wonders. The mountains of California (1894) is his book length tribute to the beauties of the Sierras. He recounts not only his own journeys by foot through the mountains, glaciers, forests, and valleys, but also the geological and natural history of the region, ranging from the history of glaciers, the patterns of tree growth, and the daily life of animals and insects. While Yosemite naturally receives great attention, Muir also expounds on less well known beauty spots.

California Wildlife and Their Habitats

California Wildlife and Their Habitats
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 448
Release: 1980
Genre: Amphibians
ISBN:

Relationships between wildlife and their habitats are examined in a series of matrixes, species narratives, and distribution maps.

Amphibian Declines

Amphibian Declines
Author: Michael J. Lannoo
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 1124
Release: 2005-06-15
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 9780520235922

Documents in comprehensive detail a major environmental crisis: rapidly declining amphibian populations and the disturbing developmental problems that are increasingly prevalent within many amphibian species.

My First Summer in the Sierra

My First Summer in the Sierra
Author: John Muir
Publisher:
Total Pages: 424
Release: 1911
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

John Muir, a young Scottish immigrant, had not yet become a famed conservationist when he first trekked into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, not long after the Civil War. He was so captivated by what he saw that he decided to devote his life to the glorification and preservation of this magnificent wilderness. "My First Summer in the Sierra," whose heart is the diary Muir kept while tending sheep in Yosemite country, enticed thousands of Americans to visit this magical place, and resounds with Muir's regard for the "divine, enduring, unwasteable wealth" of the natural world. A classic of environmental literature, "My First Summer in the Sierra" continues to inspire readers to seek out such places for themselves and make them their own.

Ecological Regions of North America

Ecological Regions of North America
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 92
Release: 1997
Genre: Biogeography
ISBN:

This volume represents a first attempt at holistically classifying and mapping ecological regions across all three countries of the North American continent. A common analytical methodology is used to examine North American ecology at multiple scales, from large continental ecosystems to subdivisions of these that correlate more detailed physical and biological settings with human activities on two levels of successively smaller units. The volume begins with an overview of North America from an ecological perspective, concepts of ecological regionalization. This is followed by descriptions of the 15 broad ecological regions, including information on physical and biological setting and human activities. The final section presents case studies in applications of the ecological characterization methodology to environmental issues. The appendix includes a list of common and scientific names of selected species characteristic of the ecological regions.