Description

The Del Norte Salamander (plethodon elongates) is a small (5–7 cm) salamander found among rock rubble, rock outcrops and moss-covered talus in a narrow range of northwest California. To study the habitat characteristics of the species and particularly the tendency of these salamanders to reside in dwindling old-growth forests, researchers selected 47 sites from plausible salamander habitat in national forest and parkland. Randomly chosen grid points were searched for the presence of a site with suitable rocky habitat. At each suitable site, a 7 metre by 7 metre search are was examined for the number of salamanders it contained. This data frame contains the counts of salamanders at the sites, along with the percentage of forest canopy and age of the forest in years.

Usage

Format

A data frame with 47 observations on the following 4 variables.

Site

Investigated site

Salaman

Number of salamanders found in 49 m$^2$ area

PctCover

Percentage of canopy cover

Forestage

Forest age

Source

Ramsey, F.L. and Schafer, D.W. (2002). The Statistical Sleuth: A Course in Methods of Data Analysis (2nd ed), Duxbury.

References

Welsh, H.H. and Lind, A.J. (1995). Journal of Herpetology 29(2): 198–210.

Examples