Effects of mountaintop removal mining and valley filling on the occupancy and abundance of stream salamanders

Human-induced land-use changes are among the primary causes of ecosystem degradation and biodiversity loss. Across central Appalachia (USA), mountaintop removal mining and valley filling (MTR/VF) is the prevailing form of land-use change and represents a stressor to stream ecosystems. Salamanders are the dominant vertebrate in Appalachian headwater streams. Thus, we addressed the question: Is salamander occupancy and conditional abundance reduced in streams impacted by MTR/VF? We conducted repeated counts of adult and larval salamanders within 10-m reaches in 11 valley-filled streams and 12 reference streams in south-eastern Kentucky. Relationships between occupancy, conditional abundance, and site type (MTR/VF vs. reference) were modelled using the hurdle model (Ecology, 94, 2013 and 1472), where occupancy is modelled separately from abundance while accounting for differences in per-individual detection probabilities among groups. We found mean occupancy probabilities were >0·85 for...