Fox Lab Behavioral and Evolutionary Ecology / Herpetology

The Ringed Salamander (Ambystoma annulatum) is a strikingly colored salamander that is mostly cryptic and underground most of the year, but emerges to breed en masse episodically after rains in the fall. Breeding aggregations can be huge and impressive. It lives in the Central Highlands of Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma, although little is known of its geographical distribution, abundance, and natural history in Oklahoma. Under funding from the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, we are conducting a five-year study aimed at documenting distribution, habitat affiliation, and abundance of A. annulatum in the Ozark and Ouachita Mountains of eastern Oklahoma, and are currently in the fourth year of the project. We are also testing the feasibility of using a photographic method for mark-recapture analyses in lieu of more intrusive marking techniques. We will survey sites at and near upland, fishless ponds by visual terrestrial and aquatic sampling, monitoring of drift fences and pitfall traps, and nocturnal road cruising. The PI's on this project are Drs. Stanley Fox and Elisa Cabrera-Guzmán.