A New Database for Facilitating Evaluation of Wetland and Aquatic Amphibian Communities in North Carolina

Wetland condition assessment is often performed by land managers, federal and local governments, and conservation organizations to document current condition and potentially take action to protect or restore valuable wetland resources. These condition assessments often include data collection or surveys of biotic communities such as vegetation, macroinvertebrate, and amphibian communities. Assessment tools for gauging quality of these communities are needed to allow scientists to understand overall condition. To facilitate a better understanding of amphibian communities found in wetlands and associated habitat quality, we created ratings of anthropogenic disturbance sensitivity for wetland and aquatic amphibian species in North Carolina. With adequate surveys of amphibian communities, these ratings can be input into an index of amphibian wetland habitat quality for North Carolina wetlands, the Amphibian Quality Assessment Index (AQAI). Comparison of the AQAI against amphibian species richness in a 3-yr study in 16 wetlands showed the two indices to be correlated but not strongly so. The AQAI has the advantage of providing additional habitat quality information beyond indices based solely on species richness and abundance.