What is NAAMP?
The mission of the North American Amphibian Monitoring Program (NAAMP) is “…to provide a statistically defensible program to monitor the distributions and relative abundance of amphibians in North America, with applicability at multiple scales, including state, ecoregional and continent levels.” A major goal is population monitoring for trends (eg., are frog populations increasing, decreasing, or stable?). This can be assessed at multiple geographic scales (state, region, physiographic region). NAAMP data can be used to update distribution maps for amphibian species as well as increase our understanding of breeding chronology. Initial protocols were developed by 1996, based upon previous amphibian calling survey work and the Breeding Bird Survey. More standardization was implemented in 2001.
What does the survey entail?
Surveys are run in three separate calling periods. There are 10 stops on a route. The survey should start at least 30 minutes after sunset and end before 1 am. The listening period per stop is 5 “effective” minutes. A couple of hours is usually enough time to complete a route. Sampling periods are determined on a regional basis, to reflect when your local species are active. The Pennsylvania sampling windows are as below:
| Date Window per Survey | Minimum Temperature |
|---|---|
| February 24-April 19 | 42o F |
| April 20-May 20 | 50o F |
| June 1-June 30 | 55o F |
Volunteers are asked to collect data on the “first available night” when conditions are met (in a sampling period; it’s a good frog night). Basically, what’s required is that the volunteer drive the 10-stop route on a given night, listen for and identify species of calling amphibians, and record the data on a standard form. Only one observer can fill out a datasheet and it is preferred that the same person conducts all three surveys in a year. Additional observers can fill out separate datasheets.
Frog Call Quiz
The Frog Call Quiz is a website (www.pwrc.usgs.gov/frogquiz) for learning or refreshing frog call identification skills. Part of the website is available to all people, including the Public Quiz and Frog Call Lookup. The NAAMP Quiz is for participants of the survey. Observers are asked to annually take the frog call quiz and achieve a detection index of 65 or greater. You are allowed to take quiz as many times as needed to achieve this goal.
- Each sound file may have one or more species, include in your answer all the species you are confident are on the sound file.
- You can listen to the sound file more than once.
- Quiz is “open book” as you can use any reference materials that you might use during your surveys.
The Quiz website can be a tool for learning frog calls, as well as other good web-based resources. A CD of PA species calls could be provided by the regional coordinator if preferred.
What do I do if I want to participate?
Send your contact information (name, address, email contact, phone number) to the regional coordinator (c-kgipe@state.pa.us) along with a list of routes that you would like to run, in order of preference. Route availability can be checked on the NAAMP website at http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/naamp/index.cfm?fuseaction=app.routeAvailabilityMap.
The coordinator will assign you a route and send you your observer ID for logging onto the NAAMP website. You can then access the website and begin working on your FrogQuiz. Datasheets and additional training information will also be sent before the survey season begins. Once you have collected data, you can go to the data entry portion of the website and enter your survey data. You then send your completed data form to the regional coordinator for review and filing.
