Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 116, Issue 39, Pages 19563-19570Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1908057116
Keywords
climate change; demography; headwater streams; long-term monitoring; Plethodontidae
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Funding
- Sweet Water Trust
- National Science Foundation [DEB-0105091, DEB-1114804, DEB-1050459, DEB-1637685, DEB-1655653]
- Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
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Changes in the amount, intensity, and timing of precipitation are increasing hydrologic variability in many regions, but we have little understanding of how these changes are affecting freshwater species. Stream-breeding amphibians-a diverse group in North America-may be particularly sensitive to hydrologic variability during aquatic larval and metamorphic stages. Here, we tested the prediction that hydrologic variability in streams decreases survival through metamorphosis in the salamander Gyrinophilus porphyriticus, reducing recruitment to the adult stage. Using a 20-y dataset from Merrill Brook, a stream in northern New Hampshire, we show that abundance of G. porphyriticus adults has declined by similar to 50% since 1999, but there has been no trend in larval abundance. We then tested whether hydrologic variability during summers influences survival through metamorphosis, using capture-mark-recapture data from Merrill Brook (1999 to 2004) and from 4 streams in the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest (2012 to 2014), also in New Hampshire. At both sites, survival through metamorphosis declined with increasing variability of stream discharge. These results suggest that hydrologic variability reduces the demographic resilience and adaptive capacity of G. porphyriticus populations by decreasing recruitment of breeding adults. They also provide insight on how increasing hydrologic variability is affecting freshwater species, and on the broader effects of environmental variability on species with vulnerable metamorphic stages.
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