Site Locations
The ARMI study is national in scope. Initial research and monitoring efforts will be focused on lands administered by the Department of the Interior (DOI). For ARMI, the Nation is divided into seven regions, with a biologic and hydrologic coordinator selected to work in each region. Within each region, two to three mid-level monitoring areas will be established. These areas will be subdivided and sampled via a probabilistic scheme that permits the calculation of the proportion of sites (or area) occupied (PAO) by various amphibians within the mid-level monitoring area. These surveys will document amphibian presence/absence or population viability, but not population size. Indications of changing species populations will be measured as changes in the number of viable populations per watershed, or as a percentage of the number of viable habitats in the monitoring area. Also, one to three "apex monitoring" sites will be selected in each region. Apex monitoring sites do not provide broad inference, but will consist of egg counts, population estimates, demographic studies, or other detailed population-scale work. These sites will be the focus of long-term population monitoring and research into causes of amphibian population change. Eventually, sites that are not on DOI land but that are important in terms of understanding the occurrence of specific amphibian species will be included. The map shows the boundaries of the seven study regions, and locations of selected mid-level monitoring areas within the regions.