Applegater
Spring 2011 13
The Siskiyou Mountains Salamander
By DaviD ClayTon anD Erin HalComB
In the spring of 1963, Dr. Robert
“Doc” Storm, herpetology professor of Or-
egon State University and his herpetology
class were in the upper Applegate Valley
on their annual collecting trip when they
discovered several salamanders very near
the little town of Copper, under what is
now Applegate Reservoir. They collected
some individuals, assuming that they were
Del Norte Salamanders a species known
for more coastal areas. But by 1965,
these animals were described as a new spe-
cies and named the Siskiyou Mountains
Salamander, Plethodon stormi, after “Doc”
Storm. With this began a new chapter in
northwest herpetology that would focus on
the Applegate Valley and this new species.
The Siskiyou Mountains Salaman-
der is a member of the family Plethodon-
tidae, the Lungless Salamanders and the
genus Plethodon, the Woodland Salaman-
ders. These animals respire entirely through
their skin, complete their entire life cycle
in terrestrial environments and are found
on the forest floor in moist microhabitats.
Like other Plethodon they are slim and long
with relatively short legs. Siskiyou Moun-
tains Salamanders are slim and long bodied
(approximately 2-5 inches in length), and
are chocolate brown to purplish brown on
the back, with varying amounts of light
flecking on the head, sides, and limbs.
Adults may have a faint lighter brown
dorsal stripe, and the belly color is grayish-
purple. Juveniles tend to be black or very
dark brown with flecking, and often have
a light brown or tan dorsal stripe, and are
gray on the belly.
The Siskiyou Mountains salaman-
der lives only in an approximately 370,000
acre area in southwestern Oregon and
northwestern California, primarily in the
Applegate Valley. To date, there are ap-
proximately 380 localities known for the
species.
Siskiyou Mountains Salamanders
are typically found in forested habitats
with deep rocky soils or talus and rocky
outcrops. They also can be found under
bark, logs, or other debris but always in
association with rocky soils. Individuals
are most often found by searching un-
der rocks on the forest floor during wet
weather. Siskiyou Mountains Salamanders
are active on or near the surface primarily
at night when it is cool and moist and
peak active periods occur during the wet
season. These animals prey on a variety
of small invertebrates, including spiders,
mites, ants, collembolans, and beetles.
These salamanders are entirely terrestrial
and do not require standing or flowing
water at any stage of their life cycle. Eggs
are thought to be laid in nests below the
ground, deep in rocky substrate. Courtship
probably occurs during the spring rainy
season on the talus surface.
Potential threats to this rare species
include habitat loss, degradation, and frag-
mentation. Activities that pose threats are
those that disturb the surface microhabitats
and/or microclimate conditions. Typically
these involve actions that remove canopy
and/or disturb the substrate. Removal of
canopy overstory may cause desiccation of
the rocky substrates and loss of the mossy
ground cover, a microhabitat feature of
Siskiyou Mountain Salamander sites.
Examples of the types of activities that
may cause impacts include: certain types
of timber harvest such as regeneration
harvest with associated road construction
and ground-based harvest systems.
In 1990, as a recent graduate of
Southern Oregon University just out of
herpetology class and with a good eye for
salamanders, I was hired by the Applegate
Ranger District to survey for Siskiyou
Mountains Salamander. At the time this
animal was only known from about 40
locations in the lower reaches of Carberry,
Elliot, and the Squaw Creek drainages as
well as three or four sites in the Seiad Creek
drainage south of the Siskiyou Crest.
Over the next three years we sur-
veyed for salamanders throughout the
Applegate; we documented many new
sites, and expanded the known range. I
began to use a rudimentary habitat model
that consisted of soil maps that showed
rocky soils and vegetation maps identifying
older forest and high canopy closures; these
seemed to work well at predicting salaman-
der habitat. Then in 1993, I met Dr. Hart
Welsh from the Redwood Sciences Lab
at Humboldt State University who had
been studying the habitat associations of
other amphibians, most notably the Del
Norte Salamander, a species closely related
to the Siskiyou Mountains Salamander.
We then began to investigate the habitat
associations of this animal by installing
and sampling over 350 plots across the
Applegate within all potential habitats
for the salamander. Ultimately, we found
that Siskiyou Mountains Salamanders were
found in higher
densities in older
forest with higher
canopies, confirm-
ing that they were
dependent on late-
successional forest
here in the Apple-
gate.
At the same
time, the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP)
was introduced to Federal lands in the
Pacific Northwest in an attempt to break
the stalemate over the northern Spotted
Owl. One of the provisions of the NWFP
was the Survey and Manage guidelines
which identified over 500 species that were
thought at the time to not be adequately
provided for in the NWFP system of
Late-successional Reserves. The Siskiyou
Mountains Salamander was one of these
species and surveys for all proposed activi-
ties and protection of all known locations
were required under these new Survey and
Manage guidelines. This provision was
also instrumental in providing personnel
to investigate the distribution, habitats,
and genetics of this animal. Over the
next ten years, our Amphibian Taxa Team,
consisting of researchers, managers, and
field biologists studied all aspects of the
biology and ecology of the Siskiyou Moun-
tains Salamander. We expanded the range
significantly and developed new habitat
models that allowed us to predict with 80
percent accuracy where suitable habitat
and new sites could be found.
With all of the new information we
had collected on the Siskiyou Mountains
Salamander the Amphibian Taxa Team
knew that it was time to develop a compre-
hensive conservation strategy for the sala-
mander and in August of 2007 the Rogue
River-Siskiyou National Forest, Medford
District Bureau of Land Management, and
US Fish and Wildlife Service jointly signed
a conservation agreement and strategy giv-
ing us direction for the conservation and
management of the Siskiyou Mountains
Salamander. This strategy identifies over
110 known salamander sites across the
Applegate Valley where the Forest Service
and BLM will manage for the species over
the long term.
One of two management strategies
is recommended for each of these high-
priority sites. The first strategy focuses on
maintaining habitat conditions for this
species at the high-priority site by mini-
mizing activities that may have effects on
substrate, ground cover, and microclimate.
The second strategy for sites that are within
the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) al-
lows for more latitude in activities at the
high-priority site by recommending activi-
ties that reduce fuels and the potential for
fire to the site. The two-tiered approach in-
tegrates the fire ecology of the area, current
stand conditions, fuel loads and proximity
to populated areas while providing for the
long-tem persistence of these populations.
You can read the strategy at:
.http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/sfpnw/
issssp/planning-documents/strategies.
shtml
So, from a chance discovery in
1963 by northwest herpetology icon Doc
Storm and his students, to the 1990s and
the Survey and Manage provision, we have
learned a tremendous amount about this
little salamander with no lungs that lives
in the Applegate. Under this new strategy,
the Siskiyou Mountains Salamander and
its habitat within our Applegate Valley will
continue to persist for generations to come.
Contact information:
David Clayton: dclayton@fs.fed.us
Erin Halcomb: erin_halcomb@yahoo.com
David Clayton • 541-618-2054
Photo above: The Siskiyou Mountains Salaman-
der (Plethodon stormi) by Bill Leonard
Don’t forget the
Silent Auction
at the
Applegater
Fundraiser
held
Sunday, May 1
2 to 6 pm
at the Applegate River Lodge
& Ranch Restaurant