Pacific Newt Roadkill and Rainfall (Jan 2021)

The following charts show Pacific Newt roadkill at Lexington Reservoir and cumulative rainfall amounts (measured in inches) for each of the four migration seasons we've been surveying. We use the Weathercat website based in Santa Cruz for rainfall and temperature info due to its proximity to Lexington Reservoir and its convenient numeric format which is easy to copy into Excel for analysis purposes.

Cumulative rainfall as of Jan 24, 2021 is much lower than the three previous seasons (Figure 2). This correlates with the lower newt mortality we're seeing for these months (Figure 1).

JanRainfall-0124

(Updated on Jan 24, 2021.)

Publicado el enero 10, 2021 04:56 TARDE por truthseqr truthseqr

Comentarios

Thanks, @truthseqr. I'm so glad you're looking at these data.

Your work reminded me of a great study on the impacts of climate change on CA newts across the state. Here's a link to a great article on it:
https://therevelator.org/california-newt-climate/

The researchers found that drought conditions in combination with warmer air temperatures have had severe impacts on SoCal populations, and they predict that NorCal populations could start to show similar trends. This makes monitoring this (and other) newt populations really important.

As I'm sure you're all well aware, improving connectivity for these newts will help give the population some resilience to the many threats (e.g. habitat loss, degradation, fragmentation, disease, chemical contaminants, climate change, etc.) these critters face. Y'all are doing such important work, thank you!

Publicado por tyap hace alrededor de 3 años

Agregar un comentario

Acceder o Crear una cuenta para agregar comentarios.