Effects of roads and land use on frog distributions across spatial scales and regions in the eastern and central United States

Aim: Understanding the scales over which land use affects animal populations is critical for conservation planning, and it can provide information about the mechanisms that underlie correlations between species distributions and land use. We used a citizen-science database of anuran surveys to examine the relationship between road density, land use, and the distribution of frogs and toads across spatial scales and regions of the United States.

Location: Eastern and Central United States

Methods: We compiled data on anuran occupancy collected from 1999-2013 across 13 states in the North American Amphibian Monitoring Program, a citizen science survey of calling frogs. These data were indexed to measures of land use within buffers ranging from 300 m to 10 km.

Results: The negative effects of road density and development on anuran richness were strongest at the smallest scales (300 – 1000 m), and this pattern was consistent across regions. In contrast, the relationships of a...