Monitoring and Management of a Sensitive Resource: A Landscape-level Approach with Amphibians.

摘要

Development of effective integrated resource management plans that are realistic and ecosystem based requires detailed information on the dynamics of populations at the landscape level. Because amphibians are sensitive indicators of environmental change, understanding their population and community dynamics in fluctuating environments provides considerable insight into how resource managers can accomplish their mandates. This Legacy Resource Management Program project focuses on amphibian communities in three military installations in eastern North Carolina: Dare County Bombing Range (US Air Force), Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station, and Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune. This report summarizes the results of the second year of a three-year study. The following objectives direct the study: (1) To develop a landscape- level methodology for assessing the dynamics of amphibian populations in federal installations in the eastern United States. This approach will provide information critical to the management of these sensitive resources from an ecosystem perspective, (2) To provide the quantitative baseline against which future assessments of amphibian populations and communities on each installation can be evaluated, (3) To provide installation personnel with the tools to monitor these sensitive organisms in the future so that population trends can be detected, and (4) To provide realistic management recommendations to each installation that will allow resource managers to reach their goals of maintaining viable populations of each species.