Committee Chair

Wilson, Thomas P.

Committee Member

Beasley, DeAnna E.; Hunt, Nyssa

Department

Dept. of Biological and Environmental Sciences

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Publisher

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Place of Publication

Chattanooga (Tenn.)

Abstract

Amphibians are currently experiencing a crisis of high extinction rates because of habitat destruction, and climate change. Citizen science, the incorporation of citizens in data collection or management of scientific research, has become necessary to monitor populations widely. The Tennessee Amphibian Monitoring Program is a citizen science program, at the state-level that conducts manual calling surveys in Tennessee. The TAMP dataset was analyzed to see if there was a difference in diversity and abundance of anurans in urban wetlands compared to rural wetlands in the Ridge and Valley ecoregion. A Hutchenson’s t-test and a Mann-Whitney U test found that the diversity scores of the two groups were not equal, with the rural wetlands having significantly higher diversity than the urban wetlands. Occupancy modeling found that rural wetlands appear to contain more sensitive and rarer anurans. The TAMP data can further facilitate our understanding of land use impacts on amphibian conservation.

Acknowledgments

This research was made possible by so many people that I would like to thank for their assistance, support, and encouragement throughout this process. First and foremost, I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Thomas Wilson, whose unwavering support and expertise have been a guiding force behind this thesis. Dr. Wilson has been a mentor in the truest sense, and I am very grateful to have had him as an advisor. I would also like to thank Dr. DeAnna Beasley for sticking with this project and being a part of my committee. Thank you to Nyssa Hunt for your GIS wizardry and being a committee member. This project would not have been possible without Bob English, the Tennessee Amphibian Monitoring Program, and the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. Thank you for collaborating and sharing your data with me. Thank you to the late Dr. George Cline at Jacksonville State University for teaching me about the world of herpetology. Thank you to Eric Cline for taking me out in the field and showing me how to flip a log over correctly. Thank you to my family for supporting me emotionally and financially as I continued my academic journey at UTC. My friends for cheering me on as I continued my education. To my fiancé, Shauni Barrier, thank you for your encouragement and for putting up with me talking about frogs. Finally, I would like to recognize all the friends I made at UTC. Thanks to Megan Bertoli, Caleb Gruber, and Erin Lienhard for the countless hours studying together, your moral support, and for putting up with my harmless pranks. To William Hanson-Regan and Hunter Smith, it’s hard to put into words how much your friendship and support has meant to me during graduate school. I am incredibly grateful to have you both as friends.

Degree

M. S.; A thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Science.

Date

8-2024

Subject

Amphibians--Monitoring--Tennessee; Anura--Counting--Tennessee; Frogs--Habitat--Conservation--Tennessee; Environmental impact analysis--Tennessee--Citizen participation; Wetland biodiversity conservation

Keyword

Frogs; Citizen Science; Wetland Ecology; Herpetology

Document Type

Masters theses

DCMI Type

Text

Extent

xii, 69 leaves

Language

English

Rights

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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