Comparative effectiveness of nighttime visual encounter surveys and cover object searches in detcting salamanders

.— I compared numbers of the plethodontid salamanders Desmognathus fuscus, D. monticola, Eurycea cirrigera,Gyrinophilus porphyriticus, Plethodon cinereus, and P. glutinosus detected during nighttime visual encounter surveys to thosedetected during cover object searches along paired belt transects to evaluate whether individuals of each species were morelikely to be detected using one method than the other. Significantly more P. glutinosus were detected during visual encountersurveys than during cover object searches of adjacent transects at the same sites. This resulted from higher detection ofadult P. glutinosus during the visual encounter surveys. There were no significant differences in numbers of individualsdetected using the two methods for the remaining species. However, visual encounter surveys were significantly more likelyto detect the presence of G. porphyriticus and P. glutinosus at a site than were cover object searches, and tended to yield moreadult G. porphyriticus than did cover object searches. Adults of all species used wider cover objects and were found deeperbeneath cover than were juveniles, and P. glutinosus and G. porphyriticus, the two largest species, used deeper cover andwider cover objects than the remaining species. These trends indicate that visual encounter surveys are optimal for detectinglarge-bodied plethodontids that frequently use large and/or deeply embedded cover objects that restrict access to retreatsduring cover object searches. Visual encounter surveys and cover object searches were both far superior to searches ofarrays of cover boards, which were effective for sampling P. cinereus, but none of the other species.