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...indicate that total of 98 species are documented in Richmond County. Sixty-two species were recorded from combination of passive sampling traps, hand-captures, sightings, egg masses and/or vocalizations. This study demonstrates that student-led opportunistic surveys can be successful and cost effective vehicles for creating baseline inventories of small areas.
Keywords: Inventory, survey, reptile, amphibian, Georgia, opportunistic survey, species list.
INTRODUCTION
Various environmental problems contribute to reptile and amphibian declines across the world (1, 2). Inventories that provide baseline data such as the number of species observed and the area of the site searched are useful tools for use in biodiversity analyses (3). Although several standardized sampling methods are used for long-term studies such as population monitoring, a potpourri approach that includes opportunistic sampling for documenting species presence can be effective at creating an accurate species list for small target areas (4).
A variety of techniques and opportunistic captures over a period of three years (2003-2005) were used to compile a species list for a 157-ha property owned by the Georgia-Carolina Council, Boy Scouts of America. Gibbons et al. (4) suggest that undergraduate research projects and other academically-linked efforts could result in cost-effective and meaningful inventories of biodiversity. This inventory began as an academically-linked project, being conducted as part of an undergraduate research project for a herpetology class at the University of Georgia in the spring of 2003. Additional species were added as a result of field trips by herpetology classes from the University of Georgia in 2003 and 2005, an undergraduate research project from December 2003 through March 2004 (5), and trips by the author to the study-site from 2003-2005.
METHODS AND MATERIALS
The number of possible species occurring on the property (102) was estimated by preparing a list of species...
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