2022 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Virtual Conference

March 13 - 15, 2022

6/06/2017 | 12:00 PM - 12:15 PM | EXPLORING ECOLOGICAL CONNECTIVITY AMONG GEOGRAPHICALLY ISOLATED WETLANDS | 301B

EXPLORING ECOLOGICAL CONNECTIVITY AMONG GEOGRAPHICALLY ISOLATED WETLANDS

Connectivity among geographically isolated wetlands (GIW) occurs in several forms—hydrological, ecological, and biogeochemical—across both spatial and temporal scales. We examined three aspects of ecological connectivity in a multi-wetland system on the Savannah River Site (SRS) on the Upper Coastal Plain of South Carolina, USA. We have monitored the primary wetland, Rainbow Bay (RB), since 1978 for pond-breeding amphibian annual breeding numbers and reproductive success. In addition, we haphazardly censused amphibians at four wetlands within 1 km of RB in at least six years during those 38 years and have collected tissue samples from many other wetlands across the 803-ha SRS. We assessed ecological connectivity as 1) net annual nutrient flux in/out of RB relative to the terrestrial habitat, 2) movement of marked amphibians from RB to peripheral wetlands and vice versa in ecological time, and 3) long-term historical amphibian movements among wetlands as determined with genetic methods. We observed that net nutrient flux—i.e., whether RB was a source of nutrients to the uplands or a sink from the uplands—was related to annual variation in wetland hydroperiod. In the mark-recapture studies, we found that fewer than 10% of surviving adult salamanders leave their natal site and disperse to non-natal wetlands, but nonetheless some individuals disperse at least 1 km. Finally, single nucleotide polymorphism analyses of ambystomatid salamanders show evidence of founder effects within GIW, with limited subsequent migration and significant population structure at spatial scales >1 km. Collectively, our results for amphibians illustrate varied ecological connectivity among GIW over space and time and suggest the need for maintaining a variety of wetland types on the landscape, perhaps in spatial clusters, along with upland habitat connections.

C09 Wetland Ecology
C11 Community Ecology
S15 Connectivity and Effects of Carolina and Delmarva Bays, Pocosins, and other Geographically Isolated Wetlands of the Atlantic Coastal Plain

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Presenters/Authors

David Scott (), Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, University of Georgia, scott@srel.uga.edu;