AMPHIBIAN MOVEMENTS IN RESPONSE TO FOREST EDGES, ROADS, AND STREAMBEDS IN SOUTHERN NEW-ENGLAND

If management of landscape linkages is to Le promoted as a means of co nserving amphibian populations, it must be demonstrated that amphibian dispersal does not occur independently of ecosystem edges and other s alient landscape features. I used drift fences and pitfall traps to in tercept dispersing amphibians and examine amphibian movements relative to roads, forest edges, and streambeds in a forest tract in southern Connecticut. Capture rates of 3 species (marbled salamander, Ambystoma opacum; red-spotted newt, Notophthalmus viridescens; pickerel frog, R ana palustris) were influenced by forest borders and streambeds, where as captures of 3 other species (spotted salamander, Ambystoma maculatu m; redback salamander, Plethodon cinercus; wood frog, R sylvatica) wer e not. Across all species, the relative permeability of forest-road ed ges was much reduced in comparison to the forest interior and to edges between forest and open land. The data suggest that landscape-level c onservation strategies aimed at amphibians should account for such fil ters and conduits to amphibian movement.