CHANGES IN BREEDING SITE FIDELITY - A COMBINED STUDY OF CONSERVATION AND BEHAVIOR IN THE COMMON TOAD BUFO-BUFO

One potential measure to counteract road mortality of common toads Buf o bufo is the establishment of populations at artificially created pon ds by translocating adults' This is thought to be difficult because of this species' strong site fidelity. We describe here a successful res ettlement of a substitute breeding pond in Northern Germany (Lower Sax ony). We first created a barrier system made of used metal vehicle cra sh barriers which successfully prevented toads from crossing a road to reach a breeding pond. The toads were collected annually in pitfall t raps and transferred to the substitute breeding pond. A majority of th e adult population of common toads became attached to the substitute b reeding pond after only two to three years. The migration directed at the old breeding site dropped to approximately 15% after four years an d subsequently to less than 1%. Our findings show that the provision o f substitute breeding ponds can be a useful measure for the protection of amphibians.