Talk:Red-backed salamander

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The following text appears to offer speculative information not supported by existing research:

Aside from reproduction and importantly to human beings with global concerns, the red-backed salamander plays an enormous role in reducing the rate of global warming. The huge biomass of this species in the Northeastern United States is able to make such a contribution to the biodome by consuming an equally large number of invertebrates and other detritus dwellers which quicken the decomposition of leaf-litter and fallen logs, which release great quantities of Carbon Dioxide [Co2]

One Houghton-Mifflin source article, titled Animal Angles: Frogs' Friends, seems to support the assertion, but references research by Richard Wyman that does not support the sweeping assertion that Plethodon cinereus (the red back salamander) has any global effect on climate. Although the research does indicate a local effect on mesofauna that reduces the amount of decomposition in leaf litter, there is no indication that this has any global impact whatsoever.

Modification to be posted soon. Jcsam70 (talk) 01:19, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 19 January 2021 and 30 April 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Natedavino. Peer reviewers: CooperOfford, Keh18022.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 07:55, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Red Backed Salamanders and water habitats?

From what I've read on various sites about the Red Backed Salamander species, they do not live in water, however I have seen the complete opposite of that. I live in a rural area of New England where I have found vast numbers over the last year of these red backed salamanders living in our inground swimming pool. In the spring when we opened the pool I found several species of salamanders including red backs. We've yet to close the pool this 2010 season, and having not kept it up the last month, there is no longer a chemical balance. Yesterday I extracted about a dozen red back salamanders that have been living in there for about 3 weeks now. The way they swim, they appear very well adapted for water. So I am wondering if anyone could perhaps explain to me why a species that supposedly lives on land I find living and thriving in numbers in water. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zapix (talk • contribs) 21:34, 9 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

RBS does not live in water in any stage of its life cycle. Many terrestrial organisms become trapped in pools. They usually die, especially because pools are usually chlorinated. Because they absorb O2 through their skin they will not drown quickly and they can swim but they do not intentionally enter aquatic habitats (except to soak in a puddle once in a while). Also, some other plethodontid salamanders (e.g. Eurycea sp) do breed in water (but not in swimming pools) and are often confused with RBS. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Matt Keevil (talk • contribs) 22:37, 17 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

red back salamanders delaying global warming?

I feel the mention that the salamanders' contribution to the environment in terms of slowing CO2 release is a minor or trivial comment. The amount of CO2 that is conserved due to red back salamander action has certainly not been studied and I can't believe it's an amount worth mentioning, compared to other sources. Red back salamanders undoubtedly have more important roles in the environment, no? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bkmertz (talk • contribs) 02:20, 13 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Lol, I'm sure they have larger roles in their ecosystem. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 04:45, 13 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Natal dispersal

Genetic and mark-recapture data showed that "males dispersed farther than females during natal dispersal and 44% of females were recaptured within 1 m of their juvenile locations." (Liebgold et al. 2011. Female philopatry and male-biased dispersal in a direct-developing salamander, Plethodon cinereus. Molecular Ecology 20(2):249–257) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Peter.kabai (talk • contribs) 13:13, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

new pics

Just snapped a couple of pics of a rather stout and hardy salamander that I believe is a redback, in case anyone is interested in trying to integrate either into an expanded article:

Redback Salamander (Plethodon cinereus) on moss, photographed in southwestern Pennsylvania (USA)
Redback Salamander (Plethodon cinereus) on rock, photographed in southwestern Pennsylvania (USA)

Cheers! | joepa^T 04:23, 17 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestions for Improvement

I noticed that almost the entire Reproduction and Biomass section has no citations. The second sentence of the introduction of the article is also kind of hard to read. I also think that the Description and Ecology section would benefit from talking about what red backed salamanders feed on, or the kinds of animals that feed on them. --OpalOsprey (talk) 21:35, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Overall this page is very detailed and has a lot of great information. I do think that some of the headings and paragraphs within them could be added to different headings to make them less dense and the page seem more organized overall. To start this process, I added a “home range and territoriality” heading and moved some of the behavior paragraphs to this heading instead. I also made mimicry a subsection within a heading, so that it has more potential to be added upon later. Lastly, some of the species names were not italicized. I italicized the ones that I saw, but am not sure if I got them all. --Eregwustl (talk) 18:49, 20 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education assignment: Behavioral Ecology 2022

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 30 August 2022 and 9 December 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Darreciel (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Rwolff26, Eregwustl.

— Assignment last updated by Eurquhart02 (talk) 23:20, 10 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Peer Review

This paper had a lot of information and chose only certain topics to go into which was really smart because there was a lot of detail. One of the sections needs to include sources. I restructured the entire paper because the sections had information which was irrelevant to the topic section in them and I made the paper a bit more easy to follow. Great job! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rwolff26 (talk • contribs) 05:04, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]