Effects of mountaintop removal mining and valley filling on the occupancy and abundance of stream salamanders
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Summary Human‐induced land‐use changes are among the primary causes of ecosystem degradation and biodiversity loss. Across central Appalachia (USA), mountaintop removal mining and valley filling (MTR/VF) is the prevailing form of land‐use change and represents a stressor to stream ecosystems. Salamanders are the dominant vertebrate in Appalachian headwater streams. Thus, we addressed the question: Is salamander occupancy and conditional abundance reduced in streams impacted by MTR/VF? We conducted repeated counts of adult and larval salamanders within 10‐m reaches in 11 valley‐filled streams and 12 reference streams in south‐eastern Kentucky. Relationships between occupancy, conditional abundance, and site type (MTR/VF vs. reference) were modelled using the hurdle model (Ecology, 94, 2013 and 1472), where occupancy is modelled separately from abundance while accounting for differences in per‐individual detection probabilities among groups. We found mean occupancy probabilities were >0·85 for all groups in reference reaches, whereas mean occupancy probabilities were relatively lower in MTR/VF reaches (ranging from 0·23 to 0·66). Posterior means of the difference in occupancy between site types were negative across all groups, although MTR/VF stream reaches were at least 95% less likely to be occupied by spring salamander Gyrinophilus porphyriticus, adult southern two‐lined salamander Eurycea cirrigera and larval dusky salamanders Desmognathus compared to reference reaches. Posterior means of the difference in conditional abundance between MTR/VF and reference stream reaches were negative across all groups; 95% credible interval for difference in conditional abundance covered zero for only one species (red salamander Pseudotriton ruber). After adjusting for goodness‐of‐fit, point estimates of differences in occupancy and conditional abundance still remained below zero for most species. Additionally, MTR/VF reaches had higher ion concentrations, total organic carbon and specific conductance compared to reference reaches. Synthesis and applications. Our study concludes that mountaintop removal mining and valley filling (MTR/VF) reduces salamander occupancy and conditional abundance. Although the potential mechanisms responsible for reduction are numerous, our findings suggest a change in the current regulatory framework is needed to offset the impacts of MTR/VF on stream ecosystems and biota. Reclamation techniques that enhance conditions for vegetative succession within catchments may improve habitat on reclaimed surface mines.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".