Last week the Clemson Wildlife Society had the privilege of hosting the annual Southeastern Wildlife Conclave. We brought in about 500 students and faculty from 22 schools ranging from Maryland to Louisiana. The wildlife conclave is a spirited competition between the wildlife programs of different schools to claim the top spot each year. Students compete in events like orienteering, radio telemetry, fly casting, shotgun shooting, obstacle course (muddy, disgusting, cold), archery, dendrology, quiz bowl (wildlife knowledge double elimination team competition), and much more. Our friends at the University of Georgia took Gold. Go dawgs?

After the conclave students had the opportunity to go on field trips in the Clemson area. I personally had the opportunity to lead a group of students out to Yellow Branch falls to search for salamanders and learn about the topography, flora, and fauna of upstate South Carolina.

This short 3 mile round trip hike takes you to a 50 foot waterfall that is an excellent location to find salamanders big and small from many species. On sunny days it usually gets a nice rainbow (see above photo). It's a great example of what happens when you have an area that gets so much rainfall, mixed with the topographic feature that is the Blue Ridge Escarpment. The Blue Ridge Escarpment is a steep ridge that drops directly to the Piedmont along the upstate of SC. Because of the plethora of streams and the steep terrain, we are fortunate in having a multitude of outstanding waterfalls in the upstate of SC. We even have one that tops 400 feet in height called lower whitewater falls.

Salamanders are always a great way to get people motivated about the outdoors and wildlife in general. I think they have the capability of being a strong charismatic megafauna (mega in my opinion) much like the polar bear or the elephant. They're a very likable animal and are a bottomless pit of scientific experience and exploration for students of all ages. They're durable, easy to find, and for the most part harmless. All this being said salamanders, as well as many other amphibians, are in a state of rapid population and diversity decline. We are losing amphibians around the world quickly and with very little knowledge as to how to stop this loss. Lots of work, and stronger regulations are needed to protect these critters. They may be small, but because of their huge population densities and nutrient absorbing capabilities they play an important role in overall watershed health and processes.They are also the dominant predator in small streams and many wetlands, controlling the dynamics of nutrient flux between aquatic and terrestrial habitats, as well population dynamics of macro invertebrates (stream bugs). So, they may be small (like this guy) but they carry their weight and then some when it comes to maintaining healthy streams.

Finding Field Sites and Comparing Two Development Patterns

Hello again everyone! I suppose it is time to discuss more about what I am studying. My current work is to determine the long-term (20+ years) effect of exurban neighborhood development on stream morphology, stream health, and salamander occupancy/diversity. I'm selecting small streams where salamanders are the dominant predator of the ecosystem (1st/2nd order, no fish). The goals of this project are to see if in the long-term a stream that is disturbed for exurban development returns to pre-disturbance conditions, or remains permanently degraded.

It has been found that streams and their associated salamanders recover after timber harvest. Exurban neighborhoods also involve large vegetation loss for development, and are also allowed to grow said vegetation back, like in a timber plantation. There are obviously many difference between forests and low density neighborhoods though, so we need studies to show us if these areas recover. If you have questions about the specifics of this work leave me a question in the comments, I don't want to bore my readers with all the technical jargon and heavy background information.

This week I'll be traveling to Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, TN to locate my field sites on the Tennessee side of the mountains. While looking at the mapping software I've come across an interesting observation. It appears that we are in fact seeing two distinct patterns of the development. A typical Gatlinburg area community looks like this (note the condo/house density and the amount of vegetation removed).

Our typical NC neighborhood looks more like the following image (far less dense, but much larger houses and often associated golf courses):

I am currently trying to decide how to incorporate this variation into the study. I'm wondering whether I should try to find TN sites similar to the NC ones for the sake of consistency, even if they are not representative of the majority of the neighborhoods I've seen on the TN side, or if I should select this dense neighborhoods in TN. It might be cool to capture the two ranges of development, but I also worry that adding more variables will reduce the statistical significance of whatever findings I may have.

Creative Inquiry Experience: Spring 2014

Hello Everyone, thanks for finding your way through the bowels of the internet to my blog! Here I'll be discussing my field work and other wildlife related activities while I try to save the world one little stream at a time. This is my first post and the structure of the site is still a work in progress.

While at Clemson this semester I am leading a team of 8 undergraduates through a program called Creative Inquiry (CI). CI offers undergraduates the opportunity to become actively engaged with a professor or graduate students research projects. They help me in the field, but do much more than that. This program is special because students are expected to design their own research questions relevant to my work and use my data along with supplementary data geared towards their work to answer these research questions. Below is a picture most of my class. Aren't they just adorable and intelligent looking?

These students are attempting to answer questions ranging from everything to salamander habitat preference, macroinvertebrate prey items, stream flow, and effects of vegetation. My research project is geared towards assessing the long term effects of exurbanization, but I will go more in depth with this in later posts.

CI is an awesome opportunity that really helps develop our next generation of scientists. I strongly advise any undergraduate in Wildlife or a similar to field to consider a CI course to augment their educational experience.

Thanks again for checking out my page, I'll be sure to post more in the coming weeks!