Catawba students who participated in the trip were Lucas Bailey, Daityn Bost, Larkin Garden, Keira Potts, and Ana Price. They were led by their professor, Dr. Joe Poston. On the trip, students gathered data for two projects.
One project studies the change in salamander species with elevation. After dark, they sampled salamanders at the summit of Whitetop Mountain, and then at several lower elevations to document each species’ preferred elevational distribution. Daityn Bost of Salisbury NC noted, “It was interesting to observe the abundance of salamanders in the area but also to see how certain species were distributed at different elevations, especially at the top of Whitetop Mountain”.
The other project explores salamanders’ use of streamside habitats. During the daytime, students searched a small stream and the surrounding woods for salamanders, identified species, and recorded each salamander’s distance from water. Keira Potts remarked, “I thought the most fascinating part was crouching in the creek and just looking around and finding little salamanders running everywhere, it really opened my eyes to how crucial salamanders are to habitat life and how abundant they are especially in our creeks. I loved getting to catch the salamanders and then learn how to identify them and properly release them back into their environment."
Biology professor Joe Poston explained, “I designed this trip to help students experience salamander diversity. There are more species of salamanders in the southern Appalachian Mountains than anywhere else in the world.” One of the students, Ana Price, was impressed by the diversity of salamanders she observed: “I really enjoyed this trip because I got to practice using a key to identify which species I had in hand, and each time it was a different species!”
After the trip, Larkin Garden added, “I had so much fun on this trip because it felt like one giant treasure hunt but where we were looking for different patterned and brightly colored salamanders instead of a treasure chest!”
