The Amphibians and Reptiles of Conecuh National Forest, Escambia and Covington Counties, Alabama.

Conecuh National Forest (CNF) contains one of the largest tracts of Longleaf Pine (Pinus palustris) forest in Alabama, and due to this habitat's rich associated herpetofauna, it is one of the most important areas for amphibian and reptile conservation in the state. Here, we publish the results of extensive herpetofaunal inventories conducted from 2002-2012 within CNF. Our results indicate 105 species of amphibians and reptiles are documented within CNF, although a few species have not been encountered in over 30 years and are presumed to be extirpated, and one species was recently reintroduced. This list also includes one exotic species documented within CNF for the first time during this study. We observed most of these species within the past 10 years, and during this study we discovered and/or formally vouchered 18 new species within the forest for the first time. The episodic nature of surveys conducted within CNF allowed us to qualitatively determine population stability for the herpetofauna. Most species were consistently observed during any given study period, indicating they are fairly common and their populations are likely stable, while fewer species evaded dectection between studies, possibly indicating that low detection probabilies, rarity, population declines, or some combination of these factors explain the lack of detection. We found qualitative differences between herpetofuanal assemblages in Longleaf Pine forests with different moisture regimes, however, statistically there were few differences in capture rates among these forest types. Our analysis of species richness patterns within southeastern U.S. public lands indicate that CNF contains the most species rich native herpetofauna (adjusted for size) of any National Forest in the United States, and therefore this property possibly has the highest species richness of any herpetofauna in North America north of Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]