Long-Term Patterns of Amphibian Diversity, Abundance and Nutrient Export from Small, Isolated Wetlands

Seasonally inundated wetlands contribute to biodiversity support and ecosystem function at the landscape scale. These temporally dynamic ecosystems contain unique assemblages of animals adapted to cyclically wet–dry habitats. As a result of the high variation in environmental conditions, wetlands serve as hotspots for animal movement and potentially hotspots of biogeochemical activity and migratory transport of nutrient subsidies. Most amphibians are semi-aquatic and migrate between isolated wetlands and the surrounding terrestrial system to complete their life cycle, with rainfall and other environmental factors affecting the timing and magnitude of wetland export of juveniles. Here we used a long-term drift fence study coupled with system-specific nutrient content data of amphibians from two small wetlands in southeastern Georgia, USA. We couple environmental data with count data of juveniles exiting wetlands to explore the controls of amphibian diversity, production and export and the amphibian life-history traits associated with export over varying environmental conditions. Our results highlight the high degree of spatial and temporal variability in amphibian flux with hydroperiod length and temperature driving community composition and overall biomass and nutrient fluxes. Additionally, specific life-history traits, such as development time and body size, were associated with longer hydroperiods. Our findings underscore the key role of small, isolated wetlands and their hydroperiod characteristics in maintaining amphibian productivity and community dynamics.

An improved representation of ephemeral pool hydrology in a semi-distributed hydrologic model

<p>Ephemeral pools are seasonally flooded geographically isolated wetlands with distinct hydrology i.e., they are filled in winter and spring with inflow from snowmelt, and precipitation and dry out during summer. Ephemeral pools offer a variety of biodiversity benefits notably providing breeding habitat for several amphibian and invertebrate species. The quality of their ecosystem services is mainly controlled by their hydroperiod which is regulated by hydrology i.e., inflow /outflow of the pools. The classic water budget modeling approach with a simplified representation of the flow exchange between the pool and surface-subsurface zones may not adequately reveal their sensitivity to anthropogenic interventions and climatic changes. On the other hand, the generic volume-area-depth relationship of isolated wetlands in deterministic hydrologic models may not adequately reveal their dynamic water level fluctuations. The objective of this study, in the first place, is to improve the representation of ephemeral pools in the semi-distributed SWAT hydrological model, notably in the pothole module which is used for modeling isolated wetlands. The developed model will then be used to analyze the impact of land use and climate changes on dynamics of hydroperiods of ephemeral pools of the Saumon River watershed (68 km<sup>2</sup>) in the Canadian Shield of the Outaouais region (Quebec, Canada). A detailed bathymetry survey along with a long series (one to five years) of daily water level measurements available at ten pools allowed to replace the simplified linear volume-area relationship with the measured rating curve for the ephemeral pools in this region. The calibration process of the revised model is performed using the standard SWAT calibration code (SWAT-CUP) coupled to a Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm adjusting evaporation and seepage coefficients of the revised module for all isolated wetlands of the region. This double calibration ensures representation of both the watershed hydrology (10 years of river flow rates) and the water level fluctuations in the pools. The simulation results show that the revised SWAT version can adequately reproduce the dynamic water level behavior of the monitored pools as well as streamflow discharges. The model is currently used with scenarios of human and climatic disturbances to understand their impact on the filling-drying cycle of ephemeral pools and on the integrated hydrologic system at the watershed scale.</p>