One part of the research by Erin Gaylord, left, and Nicole Cobb is to collect samples of the protective mucus on salamanders’ skin that will be used to test for chytrid, a fungus that’s killing amphibians worldwide.
“I’m getting there … I’m going slow … Oh, gross!”
Squeezed waist-deep into the dampness under a boulder the size of an SUV, Erin Gaylord just found a spiderweb. With her face.
Next to her, scrunched under the same rock, Nicole Cobb is trying to help but couldn’t help much. There just isn’t enough room.
So why were they smooshed under the rock in the first place?
Salamanders.
Specifically, the two students, both seeking master’s degrees in environmental science at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, have spent the past couple of months researching green salamanders in the eastern part of the state.
Cobb is seeing whether popular hiking trails have a negative impact—or any impact at all—on the number of salamanders when compared to trails with fewer hikers.
Gaylord created a computer model to predict where green salamanders live in Eastern Tennessee and what factors influence their habitat. She’s researching how accurate that model is by heading into the woods.
In both cases, finding the critters is critical.
“When we’re out in the field, we can pick ’em up. We can’t obviously hurt them or anything. And it’s not a bring-home. It’s a release,” Cobb said.
Having picked up plenty of them, Cobb and Gaylord call green salamanders “green boogers” because they’re covered in slick mucus.
The Appalachian Mountains have the highest diversity of salamander species in the world, Cobb and Gaylord said, but finding them hasn’t always been a walk in the woods.
To most, salamanders are those lizard-like animals that live in creeks and streams and wet mud. But there are species that prefer wooded areas with damp spaces under rocks, rotting logs and piles of leaves. That’s where green salamanders live and, because they live in the woods and out-of-the-way places they’re harder to find and harder to study.
“The last place you’d ever think to find a salamander,” Cobb said. “They’re weird.”
Along with her research project, Cobb is testing any salamander she finds for the disease chytrid, a fungus infection that can be carried into the woods on boots and backpacks. The disease is decimating amphibians worldwide.
Results from her test samples haven’t been returned from the lab yet, so she doesn’t know whether the fungus is on any salamander in the Tennessee River Valley Gorge, where her research is taking place.
When testing for chytrid, she also takes basic measurements of the salamander such as head width, tail length and body length.
“We are doing it for the same reason we are testing for chytrid,” she said. “The more data available the better it is for the scientific community and the more information there is, the more helpful it is to future researchers.”
In Gaylord’s research, her predictive computer model and real-world numbers are lining up very well, she said. Checking at multiple locations, she said, the computer accurately predicted where more salamanders should be and where less should be.
“I’m taking various measurements at these points of the habitat,” she said. “I’m looking to see if they’re there or if they’re not there.”
In their research, Gaylord and Cobb use GPS software, test tubes and cotton swabs, tape measurements and grimy grunt work to find, test and record salamander information. They walk across water-slick rocks and search at the foot of cliff faces. Oh yeah, and they scrunch under boulders.
Beneath the spiderweb-y rock, they found a slimy salamander—yes, “slimy” is part of its official name—and tried to snag it, but the two-inch bugger scooted away into a nearby crevice.
At times, they find more than salamanders. In her research travels, Cobb has seen a copperhead and been up close and personal with a “giant” timber rattlesnake.
“It was my first week surveying and I was alone,” she recalled. “I tripped and my foot got stuck in a hole. I was so concerned that I had rolled my ankle and I had a mile hike out.”
That worry took a backseat when she looked down and saw a coiled rattlesnake a few feet away. It wasn’t rattling its tail, so it wasn’t upset. She was upset enough for the both of them.
“Then I calmed down and I took a picture,” she said with a laugh, showing a cellphone photo of the snake. Yeah, it’s big.
As an added insult, she didn’t find any green salamanders that day.
“I found that rattlesnake, but I couldn’t find a green. But that’s just the name of the game.”
