Carryover effects minimized the positive effects of treated wastewater on anuran development.

Constructed wetlands (CWs) are a potential solution for wastewater treatment due to their capacity to support native species and provide tertiary wastewater treatment. However, CWs can expose wildlife communities to excess nutrients and harmful contaminants, affecting their development, morphology, and behavior. To examine how wastewater CWs may affect wildlife, we raised Southern leopard frogs, Lithobates sphenocephalus, in wastewater from conventional secondary lagoon and tertiary CW treatments for comparison with pondwater along with the presence and absence of a common plant invader to these systems - common duckweed (Lemna minor) - and monitored their juvenile development for potential carryover effects into the terrestrial environment.

Interspecific interactions are conditional on temperature in an Appalachian stream salamander community.

Differences in the rates of responses to climate change have the potential to disrupt well-established ecological interactions among species. In semi-aquatic communities, competitive asymmetry based on body size currently maintains competitive exclusion and coexistence via interference competition. Elevated temperatures are predicted to have the strongest negative effects on large species and aquatic species.

Interactive effects of temperature and glyphosate on the behavior of blue ridge two-lined salamanders (Eurycea wilderae).

The objective of the present study was to evaluate the potential interactive effects of stream temperatures and environmentally relevant glyphosate-based herbicide concentrations on movement and antipredator behaviors of larval Eurycea wilderae (Blue Ridge two-lined salamander). Larval salamanders were exposed to 1 of 4 environmentally relevant glyphosate concentrations (0.00 µg acid equivalent [a.

Effects of urbanization on occupancy of stream salamanders.

Urban development is the most common form of land conversion in the United States. Using a before-after control-impact study design, we investigated the effects of urbanization on larval and adult stages of southern two-lined salamanders (Eurycea cirrigera) and northern dusky salamanders (Desmognathus fuscus). Over 5 years, we estimated changes in occupancy and probabilities of colonization and survival in 13 stream catchments after urbanization and in 17 catchments that were not urbanized.

Patterns of trombiculid mite (Hannemania dunni) parasitism among plethodontid salamanders in the western Piedmont of North Carolina.

Trombiculid mites are known to parasitize a variety of amphibian species, yet few comparisons of mite parasitism among amphibian species have been made. In this study, we investigated patterns of trombiculid mite parasitism among 3 plethodontid salamanders (Desmognathus fuscus, Eurycea cirrigera, and Plethodon cylindraceus) in the western Piedmont of North Carolina. All 3 salamander species were parasitized by a single species, Hannemania dunni.