USING CLOUD-BASED REMOTE SENSING ANALYSES TO ASSESS THE IMPACTS OF SMALL-SCALE RESTORATION ACTIVITY ON COLUMBIA SPOTTED FROG POPULATIONS

In central Nevada’s Toiyabe Mountains, the combination of recent drought conditions and the resulting habitat degradation has threatened local populations of Columbia spotted frogs (Rana luteiventris). To combat this habitat loss and to buffer the populations from the impacts of drought, resource managers constructed series of ponds along several reaches of Indian Creek. Here we consider the impact of those ponds on both the resident Columbia spotted frog populations and the landscape using spatially and temporally integrated climate and remote sensing data. For three reaches of the creek, we obtained local precipitation and Landsat-based normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) over the length of the Landsat record (1984 – present). Using spatially and temporally integrated annual NDVI values, we established pre-restoration relationships between precipitation and NDVI. We then tested the post-restoration data to identify statistically significant changes in those relationships that we could attribute to restoration activities. At the same time, we used the NDVI values as predictors in a population model to assess the impact of NDVI (as a proxy for near-surface water availability) on local frog populations. Preliminary results suggest that restoration in the downstream reach has increased the availability of near-surface water in the landscape, while restoration activities upstream have mitigated habitat degradation that appears to occur in areas without restoration activity. This approach makes it possible to quantify the impact of restoration activities on both the landscape and the demography of the populations that occupy the landscape.