THE RESPONSE OF A PINE SAVANNA HERPETOFAUNAL COMMUNITY TO HABITAT HEALTH AND RESTORATION

Wildland fire is necessary for maintaining and restoring Pine Savannas in the southeastern USA, but there is disagreement on best land management regimes for herpetofaunal communities in these areas. We recreated a 2004 sampling effort in the Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (GNDNERR) and Grand Bay National Wildlife Refuge (GNDNWR), south Mississippi, USA, to assess how amphibian and reptile assemblages differ in response to prescribed fire. We used Visual Encounter Surveys (VES), minnow traps, and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) tubes in three burned and three unburned sites. As in 2004, we detected more amphibians (67% of our sample) than reptiles and found more individuals in burned than unburned treatments. We found no differences in abundance, diversity, evenness, and richness between burned and unburned treatments, though a Principal Coordinates Analysis (PCoA) indicated that burned communities were more similar to one another than to unburned communities. An Indicator Species Analysis (ISA) corroborated the PCoA findings. In both studies, we found ground-dwelling frogs such as the Oak Toad (Anaxyrus quercicus) and Southern Cricket Frog (Acris gryllus) more often in burned habitats than unburned, though occupancy analyses suggested this may be due to these species having higher detection probabilities in burned than unburned habitat. Additional surveys and different sampling methods will be needed to determine if these species can truly be indications of Pine Savanna health.