Treefrog response data from and assessment of short-term impacts of prescribed fire in Central Florida

This data publication contains tabular data from an assessment of the short-term impacts of prescribed fire on the dynamics of an upland flatwoods specialist, the pinewoods treefrog Dryophytes femoralis, using a replicated before-after-control-impact field experiment in Central Florida. We set PVC pipes as treefrog refugia at 3 meters (m), 6 m, 9 m, and 9+ m in 12 pine trees spread evenly across two treatments: reference trees in units burned in 2020 and trees in units with 2021 prescribed fire. Prescribed fires occurred April 16 and July 21, 2021. Every two weeks between March 5 and September 5 we checked pipes for frogs and assigned them unique color marks. We collected tree and environmental data, frog data, and capture/recapture data. We later modeled abundance (as raw counts), survival, and vertical movement using mark-recapture methods, multi-state, and mixed linear models with a Bayesian framework.
Pine flatwoods of the southeastern United States were shaped by frequent fires. Today, land managers use prescribed fires to control fuels but also to restore historical lightning-caused fire dynamics. Broad outcomes of this practice are well-understood, but impacts on many organisms are still being explored. Frogs, for example, have upland and wetland requirements, limited mobility, and skin susceptible to desiccation. Treefrogs spend most of their lives in uplands away from water. When fire approaches, animals may escape to an unburned area, shelter or hide in place, or be killed by the fire. We examined which of these mechanisms is the prevailing short-term response dynamic for persistence of a specialist treefrog in a pyrogenic flatwoods system.