Use of artificial bark covers to investigate the distribution and abundance of arboreal lizards in a floodplain environment
Eva Moore
A * , Dale G. Nimmo A B , Skye Wassens A B and Damian R. Michael A B
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A School of Agricultural, Environmental and Veterinary Sciences, Charles Sturt University, Albury, NSW 2640, Australia.
B Institute for Land, Water and Society, Charles Sturt University, Albury, NSW 2640, Australia.
Australian Journal of Zoology 69(4) 125-135 https://doi.org/10.1071/ZO21036
Submitted: 27 August 2021 Accepted: 18 March 2022 Published: 12 May 2022
© 2021 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)
Abstract
Arboreal lizards, especially species that inhabit flood-prone environments, have been poorly surveyed worldwide. We examined spatiotemporal patterns in arboreal lizard abundance and factors driving detection rates in floodplain environments using artificial bark covers, a non-destructive and cost-effective survey method. In total, 112 flexible, closed-cell foam bark covers were installed on eucalypt trees in 13 wetlands in the Murrumbidgee River floodplain of southern New South Wales, Australia, stratified by two inundation frequency treatments. Of four arboreal lizard species detected, the southern marbled gecko (Christinus marmoratus) (n = 41) and the tree dtella (Gehyra versicolor) (n = 8) were restricted to the mid-Murrumbidgee region, whereas the crevice skink (Egernia striolata) (n = 19) was restricted to the lower-Murrumbidgee region and did not co-occur with either gecko species. Mean detection rates of lizard species did not differ between frequently and infrequently inundated treatments but their abundance beneath covers varied significantly by month. For all detected lizard species, the presence/absence of the arachnid Holconia murrayensis represented a significant variable in explaining lizard occurrence patterns, particularly that of C. marmoratus. Artificial bark covers are a useful survey method for collecting distribution, abundance, and occupancy data on floodplain reptiles, although detection rates can be affected by the month, predator–prey interactions, and survey effort. Adopting passive, non-destructive reptile survey methods would greatly improve our knowledge of species’ distributions and abundance patterns in vegetation communities subject to disturbance events.
Keywords: arboreal lizards, artificial refuges, environmental water, floodplain environment, Murray–Darling Basin, occupancy patterns, species distribution, survey methods.
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