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Fieldnotes

49 posts
Reticulated Flatwoods Salamander on leafy substrate
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  • 1 minute read

Flatwoods Salamander Pond Research

Launching long-term research projects this summer, our Georgia field crew, led by Ben, installed water monitoring wells in ephemeral ponds within pine flatwoods habitat. These ponds are crucial for Flatwoods Salamander recovery efforts, providing essential data for their conservation.
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Southern Dusky Salamander (Desmognathus auriculatus)
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Secretive Blackwater Salamanders

My first true salamander focused foray into the blackwater creek swamps of southeastern Georgia took place years ago with my friend and former colleague Jonathon Bolton. We decided to spend a Saturday exploring a small blackwater creek system. We hiked upstream along the main channel to where it became somewhat braided, and the shallow floodplain swamp spread out beneath a dense canopy of tupelo and other hardwoods.
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Hatchling indigo snake next to a U.S. 25 cent coin for size reference
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Hatchling Indigo Snakes and Camera Trap Surveys

Our indigo snake season is winding down, but it was a pretty good winter for snake surveys, and we collected a lot of important data. Now the research crew is beginning to transition into some new spring projects, but they’ve still got a lot of indigo camera trap photos to go through. In this month’s episode of Fieldnotes, Ben recaps a particularly memorable day from this winter and highlights more sandhill biodiversity with another batch of camera trap photos.
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Using DNA to Survey for Indigo Snakes

This past November we started a new indigo snake project, investigating the possibility of environmental DNA as a means of detecting indigo snakes in the field. In this month’s episode of Fieldnotes, Ben gives a brief summary of this project and describes how we’ll test our results against other indigo snake survey methods.
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More Drift Fence Highlights

With the snake inventory fieldwork all wrapped up, all Ben has to do is remove his drift fences before moving on to some new research projects. In this month’s episode of Fieldnotes, he revisits a few more highlights from the project, including a few of the most memorable snakes.
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