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UMW team's survey of salamanders has legs
The newts and salamanders of Phelps Wildlife Management Area in Fauquier County come under scrutiny from two University of Mary Washington faculty members
Date published: 5/12/2008
By LAURA MOYER With a swift swoop, Michael Killian scoops a squirming newt from the rocky bottom of Persimmon Run. It's a mature male Eastern newt, and the female is nearby. Once Killian returns the male to the water, the two amphibians may mate. This Fauquier County creek, which runs through the C.F. Phelps Wildlife Management Area, is loaded with aquatic newts and salamanders. Their nearby terrestrial relatives also are plentiful, roaming the woodland floor amid dead leaves and new growth. On this Friday afternoon, like many others, University of Mary Washington Department of Biological Sciences lecturer Killian and visiting assistant professor Jay McGhee are here to observe and record. Virginia is known to have 55 distinct species of salamanders and newts. Over the past year, Killian and McGhee have documented 11 of those species at Phelps. They're halfway through a two-year study that seeks to determine what species of salamanders live at Phelps, where they live, how they affect their environment and how their environment affects them. McGhee, 36, came to UMW last year and started the salamander survey as a way to involve students in meaningful research. It's important to study salamanders, he says, because amphibians worldwide are in decline--vulnerable to habitat fragmentation and loss, pollution and other factors. And there was scarce long-term data on salamander diversity and health in Each week McGhee and Killian, 57, make at least one trip to Phelps. They were aided this past semester by freshman student researcher Carly Byers. At randomly selected sites they pinpoint on a GPS, they conduct 1-meter-square searches in creeks or streams, and similar searches on land. They also do "natural cover object" searches, lifting logs and rocks that salamanders hide under. In each of the searches, they're careful to leave the site as they found it, returning pebbles, mud and sand to the creek bed, and leaf detritus and insects to the forest floor. This day they drive deep into the refuge, then unload Killian's pickup truck near Persimmon Run. Two backpacks hold their equipment, which includes several nets, the GPS unit, a plastic quadrat that will define each meter-square search area, a sling psychometer to measure humidity, a soil thermometer and a pH meter.
Date published: 5/12/2008
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