[PILOT] Herpetological Monitoring Surveys for the Southeast Coast Network: 2011-2012 and 2014 - Data Package

The Southeast Coast Network (SECN) initiated a pilot program using Automated Recording Devices (ARDs) to monitor vocal anurans in the network parks, with a particular focus emphasis on amphibians. Anurans were chosen for monitoring because of their global importance as ecological indicators, documented population declines and extinctions, and their high level of diversity in the Southeast. The overall goal of the pilot program was to determine trends in species occupancy, distribution, diversity, and community composition in SECN parks. Monitoring was conducted in the spring and summer with ARDs being deployed for 77-day periods. Park boundaries were used as sampling frames and a suite of spatially-balanced random sampling locations were drawn from 0.5-ha grids. Recordings were first machine processed to match vocalization hits using species-detecting algorithms, before being manually processed by researchers for QA/QC purposes. Over 192,000 signal detections determined to represent (in part) approximately 23 species were observed at 10 NPS park units in 2011, 2012, and 2014.