Methods and Procedures

• Coverboards are made of green (freshly cut) white oak. They are 5 cm thick, and 30 x 30 cm. Twenty coverboards are placed along a 100 m transect that is divided into ten 10 X 10 m quadrats. In each quadrat, two coverboards are placed 0.5 m apart. Paired coverboards alternate on either side of the transect with each quadrat beginning with the left-hand side. At each site, there is a transect in both a moist hollow and a dry ridge habitat. Coverboards in the hollow are labeled from 1.0 to1.9, while those in the ridge are labeled from 2.0 to 2.9. Paired coverboards in each quadrat are labeled A and B. When installing a coverboard, the leaf litter is removed, the mineral soil leveled, and the board placed so its entire surface is in contact with the earth.
• Temperature and relative humidity data loggers are installed on the North side of a tree closest to the middle of each transect (quadrats 1.5 and 2.5) in each habitat. These data loggers are placed inside a plastic container with several small openings to protect them from harmful elements. A rain gauge is also installed in this quadrat but only in the ridge habitat. All these data loggers are launched with a laptop computer using BoxcarPro software and an ONSET , Inc. Optic Shuttle and Coupler.
• Data is collected on a monthly basis from March through November, usually in the middle of the month. Salamander activity data is collected by looking under each cover board and recording the number of salamanders found as well as their species and size. In order to measure salamander body length, individuals are placed in a moist plastic bag and measured from snout to vent and vent to tip of the tail in centimeters. Individuals are then gently returned to the coverboard under which they were found. Temperature, relative humidity, and precipitation data are downloaded onto a laptop computer from the data loggers using the BoxcarPro software previously mentioned.

Locations and dates cover boards and data loggers were place in the field:

South Moutain - The cover boards were placed out in the field November of 1997. The temperature and humidity data loggers were set out for the months of September to November of 1998 as a trial study for Lehigh's EES 355 class. The data loggers were launched for continuous readout as of May 7, 1999.
Hawk Mountain - The cover boards were placed out in November of 1998 and the data loggers were launched May 7, 1999.
Lacawac Sanctuary - Both the cover boards and the data loggers were placed in the field on April 16, 1999.

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