YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK — Yellowstone National Park (YNP) surveys wetlands to monitor amphibian populations and gather information on climate change, disease, pollution and nonnative species.
According to the National Park Service, both Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks are home to five native amphibians: the Columbia spotted frog, boreal chorus frog, western tiger salamander, western toad and plains spadefoot toad. The information gathered on these species feeds into Rocky Mountain region and national monitoring results tied to the Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative.
YNP considers amphibians a “vital sign” of the Park’s health. Because they are highly sensitive to ecosystem changes, amphibian population health serves as an indicator of overall park health and the decline of these species can directly reflect deteriorating conditions within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE).
“They often go overlooked in a park full [of] bears and wolves, but amphibians tell us so much about the health of an ecosystem,” Jana Cram, lead biological technician for the Greater Yellowstone Network, said in a Facebook post for YNP.
Since 1950, YNP reports air temperature in the GYE has been rising and shifting wetland flooding patterns or drying out wetlands completely. YNP monitors approximately 300 wetlands across Yellowstone and Grand Teton. Data collected from these wetlands supports projections for a warmer, drier climate in the region that would be tied to a future decline in breeding amphibians.
