Hossack, B. R., P. E. Howell, A. Owens, C. Cobos, C. S. Goldberg, D. Hall, S. Hedwall, S. MacVean, M. McCaffery, A. H. McCall, C. Mosley, E. B. Oja, J. C. Rorabaugh, B. H. Sigafus, and M. J. Sredl. 2022. Identifying factors linked with population persistence: Lessons learned from 25 years of amphibian translocations. Global Ecology and Conservation 35: e02078.
Abstract
Conservation translocations are increasingly used to help recover imperiled species. However, success of establishing populations remains low, especially for amphibians. Identifying factors associated with translocation success can help increase efficiency and efficacy of recovery efforts. Since the 1990s, several captive and semi-captive facilities have produced Chiricahua Leopard Frogs (Rana chiricahuensis) to establish or augment wild populations in Arizona and New Mexico, USA. During this same time, personnel associated with several programs surveyed translocation and non-translocation sites for presence of amphibians. We used 25 years (1995–2019) of survey and translocation data for the federally threatened Chiricahua Leopard Frog to identify factors linked with population persistence. Our dataset included approximately 40,642 egg masses or animals translocated in 314 events to 115 distinct sites and > 5800 visual encounter surveys from 641 sites; 120 of these sites were also surveyed with environmental DNA methods in 2018. We used a hierarchical dynamic occupancy model that accounted for imperfect detection to identify patch- and landscape-level attributes associated with site occupancy, and then used predictions from that model to evaluate factors associated with population persistence at translocation sites.