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Effects Of Mountaintop Removal Mining On Population Dynamics Of Stream Salamanders, Sara B. Freytag
Effects Of Mountaintop Removal Mining On Population Dynamics Of Stream Salamanders, Sara B. Freytag
Theses and Dissertations--Forestry and Natural Resources
Mountaintop removal mining (MTR) is a notorious stressor of stream ecosystems in the Central Appalachians. Valley fills (VF) lead to reduced occupancy, abundance, and species richness of stream salamanders. Multiple factors may be responsible for these reductions, but specifically habitat fragmentation and degradation may reduce colonization rates and increase local extinction rates. From 2013-2015, repeated counts of salamanders were conducted in stream reaches impacted by MTR/VF and compared to counts in reference reaches to answer the question: do stream salamander population dynamics differ between stream reaches impacted by MTR/VF and reference stream reaches? I also investigated dynamics of stream habitat …