Poster Details
RANGE WIDE LAND USE IMPACTS ON THE FEDERALLY ENDANGERED CRAYFISH CAMBARUS VETERANUS
Cambarus veteranus was listed as federally endangered by the USFWS in April of 2016. Prior to listing, a range-wide survey was completed in West Virginia’s Upper Guyandotte River basin. Cambarus veteranus was determined to only occur in the Clear Fork/Laurel Fork and Pinnacle Creek watersheds and had experienced >80% range reduction over the previous century. Using presence/absence data from the 2015 survey, we determined local and landscape level land-use impacts on C. veteranus site occupancy by plotting collection locales on the National Land Use Cover (NLCD 2011) and generating 300m and 1000m buffers around each collection locale. Percent land use at those scales was then calculated and logistic regression models generated using previously garnered presence-absence data. Model selection results at both scales indicated a negative relationship with both agricultural and barren land and a positive relationship with forested land. Surface mining and development were determined to be important causal agents of C. veteranus decline prior to this effort. Maintenance of natural stream corridors appears to be important for the conservation of C. veteranus.
Gregory Myers (Primary Presenter/Author), West Liberty University, gamyers@westliberty.edu ;
Zachary Loughman ( Co-Presenter/Co-Author), West Liberty University, zloughman@westliberty.edu;