EARLY HEARING DETECTION AND INTERVENTION VIRTUAL CONFERENCE
MARCH 2-5, 2021

(Virtually the same conference, without elevators, airplane tickets, or hotel room keys)

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5/25/2021 | 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | USING ENVIRONMENTAL DNA SURVEYS AND LAND USE CHANGE TO ASSESS EXTINCTION DEBT OF EASTERN HELLBENDERS IN ALABAMA | Virtual Platform

USING ENVIRONMENTAL DNA SURVEYS AND LAND USE CHANGE TO ASSESS EXTINCTION DEBT OF EASTERN HELLBENDERS IN ALABAMA

Extinction debt, or the time lag in the extinction of species after habitat loss or modification, is a well-recognized challenge for conservation. Yet most extinction debt research has relied on theoretical modeling rather than empirical field observations. Eastern hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis) populations have been declining across their range since the 1980s and previous research suggested that these populations represent unpaid extinction debts. Here we asked whether contemporary C. alleganiensis detections in Alabama better matched historical or current land use (e.g. extinction debt). We combined five years of environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling across the Tennessee River watershed in Alabama with catchment-level estimates of urbanization in 2001 (historical) and 2016 (current). We focused on urbanization because of rapid human population growth in northern Alabama over recent decades. We used occupancy modeling to estimate relative variable importance contrasting land use in 2001 against 2016. Occupancy of C. alleganiensis was best explained by benthic invertebrate metrics of stream condition and historical rather than current land use. This suggest that human population growth and ongoing urbanization in Alabama has likely committed current C. alleganiensis populations to future local extinctions as an unpaid extinction debt.

Land use
Land use
Stream

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Presenters/Authors

Amanda Curtis (), University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, amandac3@illinois.edu;