Landscape distribution of the South Mountains gray-cheeked salamander (Plethodon meridianus)

Since being described in the year 2000, little ecological information has accumulated for the South Mountains Gray-cheeked Salamander (Plethodon meridianus), a narrowly-distributed species in southern Appalachia. In this study, we used repeat surveys to model occupancy and abundance of P. meridianus along a transect running from the approximate range center to range edge. We found a strong effect of elevation and distance to streams as predictors of occupancy and abundance. The number of days since rain had a strong impact on detection probability, likely due to its effect on salamander surface activity (i.e., time outside of burrow), as opposed to observer error. Treating elevation as a proxy for distance to the range edge, we found that occupancy and abundance declined toward the range edge, supporting the center-periphery hypothesis. Our findings matched that of similar, previous studies: at low elevations in dry habitat, salamanders are only found along the cooler microhabitat of st..., , , # **Landscape distribution of the South Mountains Gray-cheeked Salamander (*Plethodon meridianus*)**

This was an observational study, where occupancy and abundance of the South Mountains Gray-cheeked Salamander were modeled as functions of the environment. Data were collected from repeat field surveys of 4m x 4m plots. Data were analyzed using JAGS and R.

#### Description of the Data and file structure

abundance_data.csv - counts of individual salamanders with covariates. The site column represents individual plots used in the study. The ‘y’ columns represent counts from separate visits. The ‘Elevation’, ‘Canopy_percentage’ (percentage canopy cover), and ‘StreamDist’ (minimum distance to stream) columns are abundance covariates. The ‘Days_since_Rain’ and ’T_degC’ (temperature in Celsius) are detection covariates.

occupancy_data.csv - detection history of plots salamanders with covariates. The site column represents individual plots used in the study. The ‘y’ columns represent detect...,