Using Anuran community diversity and Pseudacris crucifer to predict landscape quality across a land use gradient

As human-modified landscapes and climate changes proliferate, maintaining biodiversity and understanding the function and quality of available habitat is imperative. As anurans (frogs/toads) such as Pseudacris crucifer, can be an indicator species of habitat quality and ecosystem productivity, studying the anuran community in a mixed-land use region provides an opportunity to better understand the relationship between species and landscape modification. We explored the relationship between anurans and ecosystem productivity by assessing the effects of spatial and temporal heterogeneity on the presence of anurans across a land use gradient. Within the Toledo Metropolitan Area, including the biodiversity hotspot Oak Openings Region, we surveyed 67 different wetlands (N=1800) over three years. There was a difference in community assemblage between rural and suburban/urban habitats driven by human modification (impervious surface), composition (landcover type), and productivity (NDVI). The variation in spatial structure but lack of variation in temporal variables suggests that spatial factors explain differences in the anuran community among sites. Areas with more impervious surfaces, lower amounts of swamp forest, and lower NDVI generally had significantly fewer anuran species (p < 0.001, p = 0.001, p = 0.013), significantly lower average species per survey (p < 0.001, p = 0.011, p = 0.005), and lower relative abundance of anurans. Utilizing Generalized Linear Mixed Modeling, we found that P. crucifer relative abundance (p = 0.006) and greater species richness (p = 0.021) were the best predictors of ecosystem productivity. Our research demonstrates the value of non-invasive anuran call surveys to assess ecosystem productivity and species richness on a large scale, while also offering a method to evaluate conservation efforts internationally. This scalable approach can be applied anywhere with available environmental data, and we recommend utilizing anurans as indicator taxa for understanding ecosystem function, especially in human-modified landscapes.