National Park Service

National Capital Region Network 2009 Amphibian Monitoring Synthesis of 2005-2009 Data National Park Service

Publisher Marketing: The National Capital Region Network (NCRN) Inventory and Monitoring (I&M) Program has identified amphibians as a priority taxonomic group for its monitoring program. The goals of this program are to document at least 90% of the amphibian species in its parks, and to determine whether the integrity and status of amphibian populations are changing over time. As of 2004, all NCRN parks had completed amphibian inventories (Shawn Carter, National Park Service, personal communication), and planning for monitoring efforts were initiated. The objectives of the monitoring program are to implement a long-term sampling design, in cooperation with park service biologists and managers, to: (1) describe the annual distribution of amphibians (i.e. estimate initial occupancy probabilities for targeted species) and explore factors that may influence occupancy probabilities or distributional patterns, (2) determine if amphibian distributions are changing annually, and if so, explore whether occupancy changes are related to habitat quality, paying special attention to factors associated with increased urbanization in the region, and (3) provide information to aid in generating and testing hypotheses that differentiate among possible causes of long-term changes in the proportion of area occupied among species, habitats, and park areas.