Michael Graziano's Graduate Defense Seminar

An Environment and Natural Resources Graduate Defense Seminar will be held in 333 Kottman Hall by Michael Paul Graziano, PhD in Ecological Restoration. His presentation will be The Role of Forest Composition on Pool-breeding Amphibians: Colonization, Larval Communities, and Connectivity.

Outright loss of isolated wetlands (such as vernal pools) as a result of exurbanization and agriculture are discrete threats to the organisms that inhabit them. However, a cryptic form of habitat degradation that has the capacity to alter amphibian communities in vernal pools involves a shift in the surrounding forest community. As the allochthonous input in the form leaf litter is the primary source of energy in isolated forest pools, differential quality and quantities of said litter could affect higher trophic levels.  

We constructed fourteen ridge-top pools (seven paired sites, with one of each pair in a maple-dominated community and the other in an oak-dominated community) in Vinton Furnace State Experimental Forest in June 2014 and documented colonization by the amphibian community for 2015-2016. We used the information from the colonizing amphibian community in these constructed pools to investigate three primary questions: (1) does the tree community influence initial colonization? (2) do natural-occurring allochthonous litter mixes affect larval growth, development, or size at metamorphosis in these pools? and (3) how do these constructed pools influence functional connectivity of the amphibian community in this landscape, where naturally occurring pools are limited.

Stephen Matthews, advisor