Surface mining in Appalachia has disturbed thousands of acres of upland habitat, including high elevation wetlands. These wetlands perform a number of ecosystem functions, including improving water quality, regulating water storage, and providing wildlife habitat. There have been efforts to mitigate wetland losses at disturbed sites through the creation of artificial wetlands. To investigate the effectiveness of wetland creation we examined how a number of local and landscape level factors affect amphibian occupancy, abundance, and species richness. Amphibians are valuable to use as indicators of environmental health as they inhabit naturally occurring Appalachian wetlands and are sensitive to environmental disturbance. In this project 40 created wetlands across 4 age classes were studied to evaluate the importance of local and landscape level factors on pond breeding amphibian habitat. Wetlands were constructed in areas that exhibited hydrologic conditions conducive for ponding (seepage or saturated soils and clayey soils) using an excavator. Local factors included wetland size, hydroperiod, average water depth, minimum water depth, presence of woody debris, number of logs, numbers of rocks, canopy cover, percent wetland vegetation cover, presence of invertebrate predators and water quality. Distance to nearest forest, stream, and wetland were evaluated as landscape factors.
Results/Conclusions
Over 2,200 amphibian captures were recorded during 5 sampling trips to each of the 40 wetlands from May to July, 2019. There were 651 amphibians caught in 2010 wetlands, 598 in 2012, 519 in 2014, and 475 in 2016. Captures per unit effort were 0.83 for 2010 wetlands, 0.85 for 2012, 0.67 in 2014, and 1.26 in 2016. There were 8 species found in 2010 wetlands, 5 in 2012, 5 in 2014, and 6 in 2016. Amphibian occupancy, abundance, and species richness were positively correlated with wetland age and size. We found older wetlands had higher mean levels of total organic carbon and phosphate. All wetland conductivity values (<100 uS) were lower than those previously reported in streams below valley fills. Our results are preliminary and further analyses including a hierarchical model will help clarify the importance of individual factors in wetland creation. Those results will improve knowledge of which factors most affect pond breeding amphibian occupancy, abundance, and species richness. This information will guide successful wetland creation and mitigation on this site as well others of similar land use or geographic characteristics. Our results indicate that artificial wetlands on these sites can be effective habitat for pond breeding amphibians.