ArticlePeerJ2026
A specialist surrounded by suburbia: the ecology of a newly described Four-toed Salamander population in New Brunswick.
Article in PeerJ, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Urbanisation can negatively impact biodiversity, often resulting in smaller and more isolated populations-which can be particularly detrimental for habitat specialists. Yet, under the right ecological conditions, urbanised greenspaces can also act as refugia for remnant populations to persist. The Four-toed Salamander ( Methods: We estimated the current relative abundance and density, and quantified the demographics, of Four-toed Salamanders at the Riverview site, while also testing to see if these salamanders favoured specific microhabitats within both fen and upland forest habitats. We contrasted a wide range of suitable environmental variables ( Results: We found a total of 67 salamanders across all surveys, which translates to a conservative relative population density estimate of 2.12 individuals/ha. We observed few differences in microhabitats between where salamanders were seen and random locations, which suggests that suitable microhabitats were not limited for these amphibians at this site. These differences were that salamanders preferred higher slopes within moss hummocks in fens, cooler substrates in the forest, and the presence of woody debris in the forest. Discussion & Conclusion: Our study provides key insights into the habitat characteristics of Four-toed Salamanders at the northern extent of their range, a species with a cryptic lifestyle that is widely considered to be a macrohabitat specialist. By quantifying the ecological features of an urban habitat being used by Four-toed Salamanders in New Brunswick, we expand the types of ecosystems conservation biologists and wildlife managers should consider viable when conducting additional surveys and assessments for this species. This study increases our knowledge about the niche of an amphibian whose conservation and protection in New Brunswick, and more broadly in Canada, is hindered by a lack of foundational natural history data.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.