Population Fragmentation of Spotted Frogs in the Owyhee Mountains

This report is based on a three-year study conducted from 1997-1999 on population fragmentation in the Great Basin population, Owyhee subpopulation of Columbia spotted frogs. It includes a synopsis of the 1999 field data and looks at the three years collectively to reveal short-term-trends and population demographics.

Previous reports (Engle and Munger 1998, 1999) described the importance of understanding the movement behavior of this candidate species in determining population structure. Subsequently, by assessing population structure, we can assess the short-term viability of the population. This study focused on the observations of movements of individuals within the subpopulation using an intensive mark-recapture method with passive integrated transponder (PIT) tags.