Effects of Forest Management on Amphibians and Reptiles: Generalist Species Obscure Trends Among Native Forest Associates

Abstract

In the future, land stewards are expected to increase their use of fire surrogates to manage longleaf pine forests. Varying land management strategies may have disparate effects on wildlife and the strength of these effects may depend upon the degree to which each target species is associated with the longleaf pine forest. To determine how amphibian and reptile assemblages respond to prescribed burns and fire surrogates, we sampled these animals within plots of land managed under four common management practices (burning, thinning, thinning and burning, and application of herbicide) and on unmanaged reference plots. We analyzed these data first by examining the entire herpetofauna and then by repeating all analyses for only taxa exhibiting some evidence of an evolutionary association with longleaf pine forests. We found that estimates of species richness of all amphibians did not differ significantly among treatments. These trends were altered when the pool of taxa was restricted to amphibian species known to be associated with longleaf pine forests. For associated amphibians, species richness was elevated on plots that were exposed to herbicide and burn, hardwood thinning, and hardwood thinning plus prescribed fire, relative to reference plots. No significant trends were identified for squamates in general or those squamate species known to be associated with longleaf forests. Fire surrogates may facilitate conservation for individual species of the ancestral biota of longleaf pine forests, but these trends may be obscured when entire assemblages are considered.