Checking billy barr’s snow log…
Salamanders have been used in a variety of experiments to determine the health of various ecosystems. Biofluorescence was recently discovered in amphibians, but little is known about its possible functions; more studies are needed to fully understand how it works and how it can be affected by environmental factors. Learning more about the functions of salamander biofluorescence could lead to a greater understanding of how climate change and other human impacts can affect salamanders and their ecosystem health. This project aims to focus on tiger salamander biofluorescence, and how its distribution and intensity is affected by conspecific density and social dynamics. During 2025, we found that different light exposures affected tiger salamander larval biofluorescence. Building off of this result, we now aim to understand if conspecific density and the social dynamics that occur among larvae might also influence this phenomenon. To conduct this research we captured Arizona tiger salamander larvae from a single pond to control for any differences among the ponds. They were manipulated in an experimental design with four different density treatments. We took ventral and dorsal biofluorescence photos of them before and after the duration of the experiment, using a blue excitation light and a 500 nm long-pass filter to accurately capture their biofluorescence. The brightness of each salamander was quantified using ImageJ software. I hypothesized that the salamanders exposed to increased density in small bins would lead to a brighter glow because of the potential social role of biofluorescence or the increased stress from being in a small space with another larva competing for food. Both ventral and dorsal biofluorescence photos did not show significant interactions with the treatments. A small trend in the dorsal data could be seen so this suggests that density may not be plastic as sun exposure was for them last year. This potential trend is worth revisiting in future studies. Future analysis of the data collected during this study is still underway, due to the unexpected occurrence of metamorphosis in some of the larvae.
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