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Fish & Aquatic Life: Sensitive Amphibians

Amount of canopy and abundance of southern torrent salamander

Source:  H. Welsh, U.S.F.S. - PSW Redwood Sciences Lab, Arcata, CA

The southern torrent salamander must have cool, shaded habitat. As this graph shows, almost all the sites with this salamander present had canopy cover over the stream of at least 80%. The juvenile torrent salamander resides in streams and becomes stressed at temperatures greater than 17.2 degrees C. When riparian canopy is removed through logging activity, water temperatures often rise above thresholds for this species.
 

References

Welsh, H.H. and A.J. Lind. 1996. Habitat Correlates of the Southern Torrent Salamander, Rhyacotriton variegatus (Caudata: Rhyacotritonidae) in Northwestern California. Journal of Herpetology. Vol. 30, No.3 pp 385-396. http://www.rsl.psw.fs.fed.us/projects/wild/welsh/welsh2.PDF

Graphs and photographs from Dr. H. H. Welsh, Redwood Sciences Lab

From the Mattole River Basin :    

Richness of amphibian species in 3 forest cover types (47 KB)

Air temperatures vs. distance from stream for three forest types (45 KB)

Abundance of Black Salamanders in perennial and intermittent streams (40 KB)

From regional studies:

Number of tailed frogs plotted against age of forest and air temperature (45 KB)

Abundance of So. torrent Salamander vs. % canopy (35 KB)