Pseudacris triseriata in the Kemptville Creek Drainage Basin (eastern Ontario): auditory Monitoring, 1992-2000.


Frederick W. Schueler

Every spring we've been home since 1979 we'd heard Chorus Frogs from our home in Bishops Mills, but 1992 was the last year we heard them there. That year we began listening for frogs at a series of stations along the Kemptville Creek drainage. In the 20-station transect north from home to the Rideau River, we heard only Peepers at 12 stations between 1992-2000 (the station at Kemptville Hospital is so noisy it's excluded). The only station where we've heard both species every year is JigSt/Hare Hill Rd near Bishops Mills: since 1997 this is the only station north of Bishops Mills where Chorus Frogs are heard. At 5 stations between Bishops Mills and Kemptville we heard Chorus Frogs in one or two years between 1992 and 1994. We heard them regularly at the gravelpit pond at the corner of Bedell and Dennison Rds and in swampy woods across Co Rd 44 from the Kemptville Dump from 1992 to 1996, but we heard only Peepers at those sites from 1997 to 2000.

In the 19 stations of the transect south from Bishops Mills to the headwaters of Kemptville Creek near Forthton we heard only Peepers at 11 stations between 1993-2000, both species in all years at one stations, both species at 5 stations from 1993-1999, and in 1994 and 1998 near Greenbush, and in 1996-1997 at Hwy 29 NW of Forthton. Along both transects Chorus Frogs have occurred at 40 percent of the stations, but northward they persist at only 5%, while in the south they persisted until 1999 at 30 percent, and have not been lost from any station where they were regularly heard. It is uncertain if the failure to hear Chorus Frogs at so many sites in 2000 was due to population extinctions, insufficient effort, or lowered populations after the drought year of 1999.

This pattern parallels that found for land use in a survey we did for the RVCA Kemptville Creek Watershed Plan in 1995. The biggest change from a 1978 land use map was in ‘Developed Agricultural Land.' At 80 arbitrarily selected roadside sites only 60% of the land mapped as agricultural was being used for agriculture in 1995. While the portion of the land that continued to be used for agriculture was constant throughout the watershed, successional abandonment of farmland predominated upstream (south) of Bishops Mills (25 vs 15%), and development predominated downstream of there (27 vs 13%). On the face of it, this suggests that suburbanization and ‘development,' rather than secondary succession, is correlated with loss of Chorus Frog populations.

Chorus Frogs are by no means regionally extinct. They persist in the Oxford Mills wetland at the intersection of Rock and McGovern rds, near Oxford Station, along the western end of O'Neill Rd, along Hwy 43 NNW of Oxford Mills, at many places throughout Wolford Township, and doubtless in many ponds where we don't listen, or which we can't get back to every spring.

Records of Peepers and Chorus Frogs at F.W. Schueler Auditory stations (number of auditions of Pseudacris triseriata / auditions of P. crucifer)
YEAR 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000
Hwy29,1kmNW Forthton -/- 0/1 0/1 0/1 1/1 1/1 0/1 0/1 0/1
1.5kmSW Greenbush -/- 0/1 1/1 0/1 0/1 0/1 1/1 0/1 0/1
2.25kmNNW Greenbush -/- 0/1 0/1 0/1 0/2 0/1 0/2 0/1 0/1
MudCreek,1kmSSE Greenbush -/- 0/4 0/1 0/1 0/3 0/1 0/1 0/1 0/1
2kmSW NewDublin -/- 1/2 1/1 1/1 1/2 1/1 1/1 2/2 1/1
1.5kmSSW Bellamys -/- 0/1 0/1 0/2 0/2 0/1 0/1 0/2 0/1
MudCrk,1.5kmW Bellamys -/- 0/4 0/1 0/1 0/1 0/1 0/1 0/1 0/1
2.2kmSW Jellyby -/- 1/1 1/1 1/1 0/1 1/1 1/1 1/1 0/1
S ofAtkins Lake -/- 0/1 0/1 0/1 0/1 0/1 0/1 0/1 0/1
0.6kmENE BellsCrossing -/- 1/1 1/1 1/1 0/1 1/1 1/1 0/1 0/1
JellybyRd4kmW NorthAugusta -/- 2/1 1/1 1/1 0/1 1/1 1/1 1/1 0/1
Land'oNod/MerrickvilleRds -/- 1/2 1/2 2/2 1/1 2/2 1/1 1/1 0/1
Land'oNodRd,3kmW SouthBranch -/- 1/2 0/2 1/2 1/1 1/1 1/1 1/1 0/1
S.Br.KemptvilleCrk@SouthBranch -/- 0/3 0/3 0/5 0/2 0/2 0/2 0/5 0/2
KempvilleCrk@Co18/BranchRds -/- 0/5 0/4 0/4 0/1 0/3 0/2 1/7 0/2
4.2kmSE BishopsMills -/- 0/4 0/5 0/2 0/1 0/3 0/2 0/3 0/2
5kmESE BishopsMills 0/1 0/4 0/3 0/2 0/2 0/2 0/2 0/4 0/2
4kmE BishopsMills:LimerickForest 0/10 0/11 0/10 0/6 0/3 0/3 0/5 0/4 0/2
Co18/LimerickRds -/- 0/7 0/4 0/3 0/1 0/3 0/2 0/3 0/2
S Br.KemptvilleCreek/LimerickRd 0/0 0/0 0/0 0/2 0/0 0/3 0/2 0/1 0/1
BishopsMills:S side(Schuelers) 1/9 0/42 0/31 0/40 0/28 0/27 0/47 0/32 0/30
Co.Rds18&20,4kmN2kmE Bish.Mills 0/1 0/3 0/3 0/3 0/1 0/3 0/3 0/2 0/2
BishopsMillsBridge 0/2 0/1 0/4 0/0 0/0 0/1 0/3 0/1 0/1
JigSt/HareHillRd 1/1 1/4 3/6 3/3 2/2 1/2 2/4 1/3 0/2
JigSt/Con.VII 0/1 1/2 1/5 0/2 0/2 0/2 0/2 0/1 0/1
JigSt/CoRd18 0/1 0/3 0/5 0/1 0/1 0/3 0/3 0/2 0/1
HutchinsCors/KemptvilleCrk 0/1 0/3 0/4 0/2 0/3 0/3 0/2 0/2 0/2
Barnard/ToddSchoolRds 0/1 0/3 1/2 0/0 0/0 0/1 0/3 0/1 0/1
Sanderson/StoneRds 0/1 0/1 0/2 0/1 0/0 0/2 0/3 0/1 0/0
PattersonCors/Co18Rds 0/1 0/1 0/1 0/1 0/0 0/2 0/3 0/1 0/0
BedellRd/OxfordMills 0/1 0/2 0/0 0/0 0/0 0/1 0/1 0/0 0/0
Bedell/DennisonRds 1/1 3/3 2/4 1/2 1/2 0/1 0/4 0/2 0/2
BedellRd/CPR tracks 1/1 1/3 0/2 0/2 0/1 0/1 0/2 0/2 0/2
Bedell/Co44Rds 0/1 1/3 0/2 0/1 0/1 0/2 0/1 0/1 0/0
KemptvilleHospital 0/1 0/1 0/0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0/1 0/0 0/0
1kmSW Kemptville 0/1 0/2 0/1 0/1 0/0 0/0 0/1 0/0 0/0
GH.Ferg.Forest.Sta/CoRd44 0/1 1/2 0/2 0/1 0/0 0/0 0/1 0/1 0/1
KemptvilleDump/CoRd44 1/1 3/4 0/1 1/2 1/1 0/1 0/3 0/1 0/1
RideauRiver/Co.44Rds 0/1 0/2 0/1 0/1 0/0 0/1 0/2 0/1 0/0
BeckettsLanding intersection 0/0 0/2 0/1 0/1 0/0 0/1 0/3 0/1 0/0
RideauRiverPk entrance 0/1 0/3 0/1 0/0 0/0 0/1 0/2 0/1 0/0
SW Fairmile/Reg.5 rds 0/1 0/3 0/1 0/1 0/0 0/1 0/2 0/2 0/0
Reg5/ReeveCraigRds 0/1 0/1 0/1 0/2 0/0 0/1 0/2 0/1 0/0

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