Citizen Scientists Salamander Monitoring Project

• Chaperones:– Ms. Kemp– Ms. Homsey– Ms. Carbonaro– Mr. Kiel

• What is a “citizen scientist”?– Someone who helps real scientists collect their data. – You will be helping a professional ecologist with her project

monitoring salamanders at Black Rock Forest and the Green Belt.

Trip 1: Wednesday September 21, 2011• Be at school by 6:45 am (do not be late!)---in the

event that you are late, please call the school.• We will meet in the auditorium and then either

move to my room or our bus.• The bus is a coach bus, it has a bathroom as well as

a DVD player. We can watch a movie on the way up as long as it’s rated G.

• It will take about an hour and a half to get to Black Rock Forest.

• We will be back to school at about 4:30 pm

What should I bring?• Bag lunch and a snack/snacks• Plenty of water• A backpack with only trip items in it (we will be

hiking so you do not want to have your school supplies in your backpack---no turtles!)

• Rain gear (in the event that it rains, we will still be going on our trip so make sure that you bring a rain coat)

• Sunblock (if you’re like Ms. Kemp and burn easily)• Pencil for recording data

What should I wear?• Long pants• Long socks• Comfortable, durable shoes for hiking• Clothes that you don’t mind getting dirty• A hat to block the sun• Layers (sweatshirt, t-shirt, rain coat)

What will we be doing?• We will be making belt transects which will be 50 m

long and 1 m on each side.• We will be collecting data only in this area when we

monitor. 50 m long

1 m wide on each side

What will we be measuring?• Leaf litter depth (cm)• Canopy cover• Length and width of cover objects (m)• Type of cover object (log, rock, coverboard)• Number of earthworms under each cover object• Types of arthropods under each cover object• Species of each salamander• Snout to vent length (SVL) of salamanders (mm)• Humidity • Temperature at the site (◦C)

What we will see• Salamander- An amphibian with a long body, tail,

and four legs, that relies on moist skin to breathe. – Some live and breed in the water– Some live on land and breed in the water– Some live and breed on land– **Try to learn the scientific names or Latin names of

each salamander if you can. • When writing scientific names we underline them, when

typing scientific names we italicize them.• The first part of a scientific name is always Capitalized and the

second word is always lower case.

Stream Salamanders

Two-lined salamander (Eurycea bislineata) Northern red salamander (Pseudotriton ruber)

Dusky salamander (Desmognathus fuscus)

Vernal Pool Breeding Salamanders

Marbled salamander (Ambystoma opacum)

Spotted salamander (Ambystoma maculatum)

Blue spotted salamander (Ambystoma laterale)

Jefferson’s salamander (Ambystoma jeffersonii)

Terrestrial Salamanders

Redback salamander

Northern slimy salamander (Plethodon glutinosus) Four toed salamander (Hemidactylium scutatum)

Red back salamander (Plethodon cinereus)

Newts

Red-spotted newt (Notophthalmus viridescens)