Delaware Amphibian Monitoring Program

Amy Nazdrowicz, an environmental scientist at JCM Environmental, is participating in the Delaware Amphibian Monitoring Program (DAMP) and gave this report:

Last Friday night I attended the training and orientation to the DAMP (Delaware’s Amphibian Monitoring Program), which is coordinated by DNREC. DAMP is a subset of the nationwide USGS Amphibian Monitoring Program, which encourages and coordinates individual states to execute roadside frog call surveys in order to track long-term presence/absence data of frog species and populations. Because amphibians are used as “biological indicators”, the health of their populations can be used to assess the environmental health of the surrounding areas. Frogs are especially easy amphibians to track because male frogs make an advertisement call that is used to attract females into the wetlands for breeding and each frog species has its own, unique advertisement call. So, the presence of a species within a wetland area can be determined by listening for its specific advertisement call. The data collected by this project is important because it compiles huge data sets from all over the country that have been collected using standardized methods over many years. The idea is that the data, eventually, will be able to determine which population and/or frog species are in decline.

Each participant in the program must attend the training session where they are introduced to the advertisement calls of each of the species of frog that occurs in their state. Participants are also required to “study” their frog calls on a c.d and website prior to taking a mandatory online quiz that tests their ability to identify the advertisement calls of each species. Each participant must pass this quiz prior to conducting their frog call surveys.

Once these requirements have been met, each participant will receive a route somewhere in Delaware that they must survey. Each route contains 10 stops where the surveyor will listen for 5 minutes and record each frog species heard calling and their relative abundance (on a scale of 1-3) at each stop. The route must be surveyed a minimum of 3 times a year (during specific peak breeding months and under strict weather requirements) and the data is submitted to DNREC for review and eventual submission to USGS.

You can reach Amy at amy@jcmenv.com or visit www.jcmenv.com