Does woody encroachment of prairies affect amphibian and reptile communities?

Methods

Summary

The present study will include three types of prairie, 1) shortgrass prairie, 2) mixed grass prairie, and 3) tallgrass prairie. Within each type of prairie, I will delineate areas that are native prairie (not affected by human activities, or woody encroached), and areas of native prairie encroached with woody species. Once the areas are delineated, within each area I will search for amphibians and reptiles using visual, and auditive transects during both day time (for diurnal species) and night time (for nocturnal species). Once an individual will be observed, I will identify the species to which it belongs, its sex, take GPS coordinate, and I will note the habitat characteristics (temperature, humidity, vegetation type, vegetation cover etc) in which the individual was found.

In order to reduce the stress on the observed individuals, I will not capture the individuals unless it’s necessary for assessing the sex of the individual, or if species cannot be determined unless captured. All captured individuals will be released in the same location where they been found. Each field site will be visited three times. I will survey for reptiles and amphibians for 4 days per visit in each prairie type (2 in native prairie, and 2 in woody encroached prairie) which will total in 36 days in the field during the study span. At the end of the field season I will calculate the amphibian and reptile species richness, as well the abundance and density for each species in each prairie type.