The ecological potential of snow-making reservoirs for amphibians in the Swiss Alps

This dataset and associated R code supplement the Master's thesis "The Ecological Potential of Snow-Making Reservoirs for Amphibians in the Swiss Alps" (University of Neuchâtel, 2026). The study investigated whether snow-making reservoirs in the Swiss Alps (cantons of Vaud, Valais, Bern, Obwald, and Lucerne) serve as suitable breeding habitats for three amphibian species: Bufo bufo, Ichthyosaura alpestris, and Rana temporaria. A total of 77 water bodies were surveyed across four visits between June and August 2025, including 29 snow-making reservoirs, 15 artificial ponds, and 33 natural ponds. Occupancy and abundance were estimated using single-season occupancy models and N-mixture models (R package unmarked), accounting for imperfect detection. The repository contains raw and pre-processed field data (amphibian counts and site covariates), R scripts for the full analysis pipeline (scripts 00–13), external spatial datasets (SwissAlti3D, Swiss base map, site polygons), supplementary figures, and instructions for reproducing the historical amphibian occurrence dataset from InfoSpecies (info fauna karch). Note that SwissHabitatMap data must be downloaded separately from https://doi.org/10.16904/envidat.262, and InfoSpecies data cannot be shared openly; instructions for submitting a data request are included in the repository. Data are shared under CC BY 4.0.