Forest floor distribution of northern redback salamanders, Plethodon cinereus, in relation to canopy gaps: first year following selective logging

Abstract

Timber harvesting may change forest floor habitats to the detriment of salamander populations. Although the impact of clear-cutting has received much attention, the widely-used practice of selective logging (in which individual trees or small groups of trees are removed leaving gaps in the forest canopy) has been incompletely studied. We examined the effects of such logging on the distributions of individual redback salamanders, Plethodon cinereus, in a mixed deciduous forest that had been harvested 1 yr earlier. Salamander densities and distributions were assessed using thorough searches of leaf litter and cover objects in quadrats along transects which passed from gaps into the surrounding forest. Comparisons were made between quadrats in three location categories: inside the gaps, along gap edges, and within the forest. We found much variation in salamander numbers among transects, but detected no significant differences in the densities of salamanders among the three location categories. Similarly, salamanders did not show different degrees of within-quadrat grouping among the location categories. These results suggest that the newly formed gaps produced by selective logging did not strongly affect the distributions of P. cinereus in the first year following harvest.