Emina Sunje
Other projects
17 Jan 2013
Distribution and Conservation of Endangered Prenj Black Salamander (Salamandra atra prenjensis) in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Establishment of Long Term Monitoring
10 Jun 2015
Establishment of Regional Conservation Plan for Endagered Populations of Black Salamander from Mt. Prenj
The project aims to establish a system for a regional, long-term species monitoring. We will use biochips (PIT tags) to permanently mark around 200 salamander individuals (100 in B&H and 100 in Croatia). This marking system will serve to follow the population size and dynamics throaught the upcoming years. Such information are mandatory to understand the response of species to changing environments. During the project we will collect skin swabs that will be screened for amphibian pathogens. Concerning the pubblic reachout, we will prepare a short promotional movie that sums up all the work done so far on this species as well as future plans.
Insertion of PIT tag.
Ongoing climate change jeopardizes the persistence of many populations of plants and animals. Especially at risk are populations that are restricted to isolated habitats and specialized to specific environmental conditions which is the case of the alpine salamander.
The alpine salamander (Salamandra atra) has a continuous distribution in the Alps and a disjunct in the Dinarides. Dinaric populations, known as the subspecies S. a. prenjensis, represent a unique evolutionary lineage within the species. Thanks to Rufford Small Grants we started researching prenjensis populations in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. Many distribution analysis so far could not reconfirm the presence of the species in localities along the Dinarides that are listed as occurrence points in old literature. We suspect that these populations may have gone extinct in such areas possibly as a result of climate changes. Through this project we aim to permanently mark 200 individuals of salamanders in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) in order to follow their population dynamics thorough the upcoming years. For such monitoring we will apply the Capture-mark-recapture methodology (CMR) using biochips (PIT tags). Information provided from such monitoring will help us understand how populations react to changing environments. Additionally, in the course of the project so far, a few Dinaric individuals that were kept in captivity for research purposes were diagnosed with Ranavirus. It is crucial to understand if the origin of the virus comes from the field, therefore through this project we will collect skin swabs to answer this important question. Despite setting up a long-term monitoring scheme, the project will also enforce the regional network and enable local experts to conduct similar projects on other population species.
This project, is, to our knowledge, the first example of such a regional amphibian monitoring in the entire Balkan region. The public reach out involves the production of a promotional movie concerning the life and future of the alpine salamander from the Dinarides. A big mural depicting the species will be painted under the Mountain Čvrsnica to address the need to protect the habitats of the species in B&H since these are the only unprotected areas along the areal of the prenjensis. The result of our work will be reported to IUCN.