The Louisiana Amphibian Monitoring Program from 1997 to 2017: Results, analyses, and lessons learned

To determine trends in either frog distribution or abundance in the State of Louisiana, we reviewed and analyzed frog call data from the Louisiana Amphibian Monitoring Program (LAMP). The data were collected between 1997 and 2017 using North American Amphibian Monitoring Program protocols. Louisiana was divided into three survey regions for administration and analysis: the Florida Parishes, and 2 areas west of the Florida parishes called North and South. Fifty-four routes were surveyed with over 12,792 stops and 1,066 hours of observation. Observers heard 26 species of the 31 species reported to be in Louisiana. Three of the species not heard were natives with ranges that did not overlap with survey routes. The other two species were introduced species, the Rio Grande Chirping Frog (Eleutherodactylus cystignathoides) and the Cuban Treefrog (Osteopilus septentrionalis). Both seem to be limited to urban areas with little to no route coverage. The 15 most commonly occurring species were examined in detail using the percentage of stops at which they observed along a given survey and their call indices. Most species exhibited a multimodal, concave, or convex pattern of abundance over a 15-year period. Among LAMP survey regions, none of the species had synchronous population trends. Only one group of species, winter callers, regularly co-occur. Based on the species lists, the North region could be seen as a subset of the South. However, based on relative abundance, the North was more similar to Florida parishes for both the winter and summer survey runs. Our analyses demonstrate that long-term monitoring (10 years or more) may be necessary to determine population and occupancy trends, and that frog species may have different local demographic patterns across large geographic areas.