California Tiger Salamander (Ambystoma californiense) - Alexis Cobian

California Tiger Salamander (Ambystoma californiense)

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Description and Ecology

Description

The California tiger salamander is 6 to 8.5 inches long.The aquatic larvae are yellowy-grey in color and have feathery external gills and an elongated dorsal-caudal fin. Terrestrial adult salamanders are lustrous black with scattered white or yellow spots on the back and sides, and have pink-tipped toes. The head is depressed with a broad rounded snout, and it has small brown protruding eyes and a large tongue. As well as its slightly longer length, the male California tiger salamander can be distinguished by a swollen cloaca.

Ecology

This species occurs in grassland or open woodland habitats, where it lives in vacant or mammal-occupied burrows, and occasionally in other underground retreats, throughout most of the year. Eggs are laid on submerged stems and leaves, usually in shallow ephemeral or semi permanent pools and ponds that fill during heavy winter rains, sometimes in permanent ponds; adults spend little time in breeding sites.

Breeding

In early winter, just after sufficient rains have fallen for the ground to be moist and for temporary pools to begin to form, these salamanders begin their nocturnal breeding migration. On rainy nights, the adults emerge from their underground burrows and roam, often more than a mile, to lay their eggs in these newly replenished vernal pools. Males typically outnumber females and often precede females to the ponds.

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Click the link below to watch the california tiger salamander in it's natural habitat and ecology:

https://youtu.be/-MDXTIILoVU

Geographic Changes

Image from https://sites.google.com/site/catigersalamander2012ws/endangered-species.jpg

Geographic Changes

This species is restricted to California and does not overlap with any other species of tiger salamander. California tiger salamanders are restricted to vernal pools and seasonal ponds, including many constructed stock-ponds, in grassland and oak savanna plant communities from sea level to about 1,500 feet in central California. In the Coastal region, populations are scattered from Sonoma County in the northern San Francisco Bay Area to Santa Barbara County, and in the Central Valley and Sierra Nevada foothills from Yolo to Kern counties.

The Sonoma population appears to have been geographically isolated from the remainder of the California tiger salamander population by distance, mountains and major waterway barriers for more than 700,000 years.

Population Loss

The primary cause of the decline of California tiger salamander populations is the loss and fragmentation of habitat from human activities and the encroachment of nonnative predators. Federal, State and local laws have not prevented past and ongoing losses of habitat. All of the estimated seven genetic populations of this species have been significantly reduced because of urban and agricultural development, land conversion, and other human-caused factors.

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Listing Date and Type of Listing

The State of California listed the California tiger salamander throughout its entire range (including the Central California, Santa Barbara, and Sonoma counties) as endangered on August 19, 2010 (California Fish and Game Commission 2010). The Central California tiger salamander is restricted to disjunct populations that form a ring along the foothills of the Central Valley and Inner Coast Range from San Luis Obispo, Kern, and Tulare Counties in the south, to Sacramento and Yolo Counties in the north.

Cause of Listing

As California's vernal pools, grasslands and oak woodlands disappear, the tiger salamander has fewer opportunities for regrowth in population size. The species' plight is particularly extreme in Sonoma County, where development threatens 95 percent of remaining salamander habitat, and the Santa Barbara population although it was listed as federally endangered in 2000 is still on the verge of winking out. The central California population is considered threatened, central California salamanders have been granted critical habitat, and the Sonoma population is on its way toward habitat protections.

Persisting Main Threats 

Most of the remaining range, including population strongholds in eastern Alameda and Contra Costa counties and areas south and west of Millerton Lake in Madera and Fresno counties, is imminently threatened by urban development, conversion of natural habitat to agriculture, introduction of exotic predatory animals (bullfrogs, crayfish, various fishes) that temporarily may occupy salamander breeding habitat, and/or other anthropological factors (rodent control programs, vehicle-related mortality). 

Image from the 2017 California Tiger Salamander Recovery Plan Summary

2016/2017 Recovery Plan

Overview

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released a draft recovery plan for the threatened central California population of the California tiger salamander that calls for protection of 400,000 acres of breeding ponds and adjacent uplands. The recovery plan, which comes more than a decade after the amphibian received Endangered Species Act protection, is in accordance with a settlement agreement with the Center for Biological Diversity.

Image from the 2016 California Tiger Salamander Recovery Plan Summary

“Time’s running out for these rare amphibians, so we urgently need a road-map to guide the actions needed to ensure the species will survive,” said Jenny Loda, a biologist and attorney with the Center who is dedicated to protecting rare amphibians and reptiles. “Protecting the places these unique salamanders live is the only way to save them from extinction.” 

Plan's Focus

The recovery plan focuses primarily on alleviating the threat of habitat loss and fragmentation by permanently protecting breeding ponds and their adjacent uplands throughout the salamander's range, which covers 23 counties along the foothills of the Central Valley and Inner Coast Range. The plan also calls for site-specific management and monitoring plans for the protected lands to ensure continued suitability and to deal with other threats to the species, such as contaminants, non-native predators, disease and climate change. 

The strategy also ensures habitat management and monitoring and the conducting of research. Due to shifting conditions in the ecosystem, the Service anticipates the need to adapt actions that implement this strategy over time. The recovery strategy ensures that the genetic diversity of the Central California tiger salamander is preserved to allow adaptation to local environments, maintenance of evolutionary potential for adaptation to future stresses, and reduction in the potential for genetic drift and inbreeding to result in inbreeding depression. 

Image from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGJLDVqdFUM.screenshot/image

What Can You Do?

Become educated about the threatening circumstances occurring to the California Tiger Salamanders, and spread the wisdom that you learn. A domino effect effect of awareness of this species will allow for the proper actions toward better conservation!

Get out there in the wilderness where the California Tiger Salamanders can be found, and get involved. Here's where to start: 

https://www.fws.gov/sacramento/es_species/Accounts/Amphibians-Reptiles/Documents/What_You_Can_Do.pdf

Be in the know about all the current information regarding California Tiger Salamanders. What are you waiting for?! Subscribe now with the Pacific Forest Trust:

https://www.pacificforest.org/species/california-tiger-salamander/

Are interested you interested in helping provide care and nourishment for a California Tiger Salamander. Go ahead and adopt one to become part of the movement for a positive cause: 

https://curiodyssey.org/animals/our-animals/amphibians/california-tiger-salamander/

or

https://lindsaywildlife.org/adopt/california-tiger-salamander/

Other Resources

https://www.fws.gov/sacramento/es_species/Accounts/Amphibians-Reptiles/es_ca-tiger-salamander.htm

https://hcp.stanford.edu/salamander.html

http://www.californiaherps.com/salamanders/pages/a.californiense.html

http://www.arkive.org/california-tiger-salamander/ambystoma-californiense/

References

“About the California Tiger Salamander.” Pacific Forest Trust, Pacific Forest Trust, 2017, www.pacificforest.org/species/california-tiger-salamander/.

“California Tiger Salamander.” CuriOdyssey, CuriOdyssey, 2017, curiodyssey.org/animals/our-animals/amphibians/california-tiger-salamander/.

“California Tiger Salamander.” Lindsay Wildlife Experience, Lindsay Wildlife Experience , 2017, lindsaywildlife.org/adopt/california-tiger-salamander/.

“California Tiger Salamander.” Pacific Forest Trust, Pacific Forest Trust, 2017, www.pacificforest.org/species/california-tiger-salamander/.

“California Tiger Salamander.” STANFORD HABITAT CONSERVATION PLAN :: California Tiger Salamander, Stanford University, 2012, hcp.stanford.edu/salamander.html.

Kanner, Elizabeth. “The Biogeography of the California Tiger Salamander.” California Tiger Salamander, San Francisco State University, 12 Nov. 2003, online.sfsu.edu/bholzman/courses/Fall%2003%20project/CAtigersalamander.htm.

Swenty, Sarah. External Affairs Divison, Sacramento Fish & Wildlife Office. “Species Information, California Tiger Salamander.” Sacramento Fish and Wildlife, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 14 June 2017, www.fws.gov/sacramento/es_species/Accounts/Amphibians-Reptiles/es_ca-tiger-salamander.htm.