Muths, E. 2015. Dust jacket blurb for book Salamandria by S. Trauth and J. Trauth. Mockingbird Lane Press.
Erin Muths, Ph.D.
Dr. Erin Muths is a Zoologist at the Fort Collins Science Center who specializes in amphibian demography, disease ecology and conservation.
Biography
Dr. Muths holds a doctorate in Zoology from the University of Queensland, Australia. Since joining the USGS in 1995, she has studied amphibians in Colorado and around the world. Dr. Muths specializes in amphibian demography, disease ecology and conservation. Current research projects include reintroductions of boreal toads in Rocky Mountain National Park, demography of chorus frog and boreal toad populations in Colorado and Wyoming, and salamander disease and occurrence in the desert southwest and Mexico. She is on several graduate student committees at Colorado State University, the University of Colorado and at the CCMB Laboratory for Conservation of Endangered Species in Hyderabad, India.
Professional Experience
- U.S. Geological Survey - Biological Resources Division Fort Collins Science Center, Fort Collins, CO, April 1995 - present
- University of Queensland Brisbane, Australia; Southwest Queensland, Australia, Ph.D. research, June 1991 - January 1994
- Archbold Biological Station Lake Placid, FL, Research Intern, October 1990 - March 1991
- Kansas State University, Division of Biology Manhattan, KS, Research Assistant, August 1988 - May 1990
- Smithsonian Institution, Conservation Research Center Front Royal, VA, Intern, December 1987 - March 1988
Affiliations
- USGS Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative - Principle Investigator, Southern Rocky Mountains, 2000 - present
- The Society for Conservation Biology, 1989 – 2011
- The American Society of Mammalogists, 1994 – 2002
- Colorado Boreal Toad Recovery Team, 1996 – present
- Society for Northwestern Vertebrate Biology 1997 – 2007
- Research Associate – Denver Zoological Foundation, 1998 – present
- Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation, 1999 – present; SW PARC – Steering Committee, 2008 – 2011
- Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles, 2000 – 2014; representative to joint Herpetological Education Committee, 2017 – 2020; Committee chair 2020
- Co-Editor, Journal of Herpetology, 2010 – 2015; Section Editor, Journal of Herpetology, 2014 – present
- American Society of Ichthyologists & Herpetologists, 2002 – present
- Herpetologists’ League 2007 – present; Executive Council 2007 – 2011; Chair, EE Willias Research Grant Committee, 2009-2010
Science and Products
Date published: January 21, 2021
Status: Active A Framework for Guiding Management Decisions for Amphibians in an Uncertain Future
Amphibians are a group of animals facing especially severe declines due to many factors including climate change and a common pathogen, the amphibian chytrid fungus. To make informed decisions about amphibians, wildlife managers need to identify species facing the greatest threats and the actions that will most effectively minimize impacts of those threats. Although some amphibian species are...
Contacts: Erin Muths, Ph.D.
Attribution: Climate Adaptation Science Centers
Date published: December 9, 2016
Status: Active Modeling Colonization of a Population of Chiricahua Leopard Frogs
Managing a species with intensive tools like reintroduction may focus on single sites or entire landscapes. For mobile species like the federally-threatened Chiricahua leopard frog (Lithobates chiricahuensis [CLF]), both suitable colonization sites and suitable dispersal corridors between sites are needed. Following the eradication of the invasive American bullfrog (Lithobates catesbeianus)...
Date published: December 5, 2016
Status: Active Amphibian Chytrid Fungus Sampling in Arizona and Mexico
Information on disease presence can be of use to natural resource managers, especially in areas supporting threatened and endangered species that occur coincidentally with species that are suspected vectors for disease. A general sense of pathogen presence (or absence) can inform management directed at threatened and endangered species, especially in regions where disease is suspected to have...
Date published: October 27, 2016
Status: Active Species Conservation
Large scale changes are occurring to our natural landscapes, often resulting in changes to the distribution and abundance of species living within these landscapes. Populations of many species affected by these natural or anthropogenic changes require focused management to ensure their conservation and sometimes recovery from the brink of extinction.
Attribution: Fort Collins Science Center
Date published: October 25, 2013
Status: Active Elucidating mechanisms underlying amphibian declines in North America using hierarchical spatial models
Amphibian populations are declining globally at unprecedented rates but statistically rigorous identification of mechanisms is lacking. Identification of reasons underlying large-scale declines is imperative to plan and implement effective conservation efforts. Most research on amphibian population decline has focused on local populations and local factors. However, the ubiquity of declines...
Attribution: John Wesley Powell Center for Analysis and Synthesis
Date published: December 28, 2020
Boreal toad metamorph capture, recapture and covariates data, Colorado 2017-2018
This dataset includes two files, 1) site -specific covariates including the presence of predators (fish), disease (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis [Bd] - amphibian chytrid fungus), and permanence (ephemeral or permanent) of sites in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. The dataset was analyzed for planned publication of a manuscript in Population Ecology, Crockett%2
Attribution: Fort Collins Science Center
Date published: November 24, 2020
Capture-recapture, disease and covariate data for boreal toads from Blackrock Wyoming 2019
We investigated population dynamics in boreal toads relative to abiotic (fall temperatures and snowpack -the covariates provided here) and biotic (the abundance of another anuran host,data provide here) characteristics of the local environment at 6 sites in Wyoming, USA. We used capture-recapture data (i.e., 1 or 0, provided here) and a robust design multi-state model framewor
Attribution: Fort Collins Science Center
Date published: April 14, 2020
Demographic data from two chorus frog populations in Colorado
We used 29 years of data on boreal chorus frogs at two sites to view life-history, estimate demographic parameters, assess weather-related covariates, and determine the magnitude of process variation in target parameters. Average estimates of survival probabilities were 0.51 (Standard error [SE]=0.04) and 0.43 (SE=0.04), and average estimates of recruitment probabilities w
Attribution: Fort Collins Science Center
Year Published: 2021
Amphibian population responses to mitigation: Relative importance of wetland age and design
Wetland creation is a common practice to mitigate for the loss of natural wetlands. However, there is still uncertainty about how effectively created wetlands replace habitat provided by natural wetlands. This uncertainty is due in part because post-construction monitoring of biological communities, and vertebrates especially, is rare and...
Oja, Emily Bea; Swartz, Leah S; Muths, Erin L.; Hossack, Blake R.
Year Published: 2021
Accommodating the role of site memory in dynamic species distribution models
First-order dynamic occupancy models (FODOMs) are a class of state-space model in which the true state (occurrence) is observed imperfectly. An important assumption of FODOMs is that site dynamics only depend on the current state and that variations in dynamic processes are adequately captured with covariates or random effects. However, it is...
Direnzo, Graziella Vittoria; Miller, David A. W.; Hossack, Blake R.; Sigafus, Brent H.; Howell, Paige E.; Muths, Erin L.; Campbell Grant, Evan H.
Year Published: 2021
Why disease ecology needs life-history theory: A host perspective
When facing an emerging infectious disease of conservation concern, we often have little information on the nature of the host‐parasite interaction to inform management decisions. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that the life‐history strategies of host species can be predictive of individual‐ and population‐level responses to infectious...
Valenzuela-Sanchez, Andres; Wilber, Mark Q.; Canessa, Stefano; Bacigalupe, Leonardo; Muths, Erin L.; Schmidt, Benedikt R.; Cunningham, Andrew A; Ozgul, Arpat; Johnson, Pieter; Cayuela, HugoAttribution: Fort Collins Science Center, Ecosystems
Year Published: 2020
Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans (Bsal) not detected in an intensive survey of wild North American amphibians
The salamander chytrid fungus (Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans [Bsal]) is causing massive mortality of salamanders in Europe. The potential for spread via international trade into North America and the high diversity of salamanders has catalyzed concern about Bsal in the U.S. Surveillance programs for invading pathogens must initially meet...
Waddle, Hardin; Grear, Daniel A.; Mosher, Brittany; Campbell Grant, Evan H.; Adams, Michael J.; Backlin, Adam R.; Barichivich, William; Brand, Adrianne B.; Bucciarelli, Gary M.; Calhoun, Daniel L.; Chestnut, Tara; Davenport, Jon M.; Dietrich, Andrew E.; Fisher, Robert N.; Glorioso, Brad; Halstead, Brian J.; Hayes, Marc P; Honeycutt, R. Ken; Hossack, Blake R.; Kleeman, Patrick M.; Lemos-Espinal, Julio A; Lorch, Jeffrey M.; Atkinson, Robert W.; Muths, Erin L.; Pearl, Christopher; Richgels, Katherine; Robinson, Charles W; Roth, Mark F.; Rowe, Jennifer; Sadinski, Walter; Sigafus, Brent H.; Stasiak, Iga; Sweet, Samuel; Walls, Christopher B.; Watkins-Colwell, Gregory J; White, C. LeAnn; Williams, Lori A; Winzeler, Megan E.Attribution: National Wildlife Health Center, Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center, Western Ecological Research Center, Wetland and Aquatic Research Center, Eastern Ecological Science Center, Ecosystems, Region 1: North Atlantic-Appalachian, Region 2: South Atlantic-Gulf (Includes Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands), Region 4: Mississippi Basin
Year Published: 2020
Informing amphibian conservation efforts with abundance-based metapopulation models
Science-based management strategies are needed to halt or reverse the global decline of amphibians. In many cases, sound management requires reliable models built using monitoring data. Historically, monitoring and statistical modeling efforts have focused on estimating occupancy using detection–nondetection data. Spatial occupancy models are...
Paige E Howell; Hossack, Blake R.; Muths, Erin L.; Sigafus, Brent H.; Chandler, Richard B.
Year Published: 2020
Effects of snowpack, temperature, and disease on the demography of a wild population of amphibians
Understanding the demographic consequences of interactions among pathogens, hosts, and weather conditions is critical in determining how amphibian populations respond to disease and in identifying site-specific conservation actions that can be developed to bolster persistence of amphibian populations. We investigated population dynamics in Boreal...
Muths, Erin L.; Hossack, Blake R.; Grant, Evan H.; Pilliod, David; Mosher, Brittany A.Attribution: Fort Collins Science Center, Ecosystems
Year Published: 2020
Amphibian population declines: 30 Years of progress in confronting a complex problem
In 1989, it dawned on participants at the First World Congress of Herpetology that observed declines in amphibian populations might actually be global in scope and unprecedented in severity. Three decades of research since then has produced an enormous increase in our knowledge of amphibian ecology and appreciation of the complexity of possible...
Green, David M.; Lannoo, Michael J; LesBarreres, David; Muths, Erin L.Attribution: Fort Collins Science Center, Ecosystems
Year Published: 2020
A synthesis of evidence of drivers of amphibian declines
Early calls for robust long-term time series of amphibian population data, stemming from discussion following the first World Congress of Herpetology, are now being realized after 25 yr of focused research. Inference from individual studies and locations have contributed to a basic consensus on drivers of amphibian declines. Until recently there...
Grant, Evan H.; Miller, D. A. W.; Muths, Erin L.Attribution: Fort Collins Science Center, Ecosystems
Year Published: 2020
Survival estimates for the invasive American bullfrog
American bullfrogs (Lithobates catesbeianus) are significant invaders in many places and can negatively impact native species. Despite their impact and wide distribution, little is known about their demography. We used five years of capture mark-recapture data to estimate annual apparent survival of post-metamorphic bullfrogs in a population on...
Howell, Paige E.; Muths, Erin L.; Sigafus, Brent H.; Hossack, Blake R.
Year Published: 2020
Determinants and consequences of dispersal in vertebrates with complex life cycles: a review of pond-breeding amphibians
Dispersal is a central process in ecology and evolution. It strongly influences the dynamics of spatially structured populations, by affecting population growth rate and local colonization-extinction processes. Dispersal can also influence evolutionary processes because it determines rates and patterns of gene flow in spatially structured...
Cayuela, H; Valenzuela-Sanchez, V; Teulier, L; Martinez-Solano, I; Lena, J; Merila, J; Muths, Erin L.; Shine, R; Quay, L; Denoel, M; Clobert, J; Schmidt, B.Attribution: Fort Collins Science Center, Ecosystems
Year Published: 2020
Highly variable rates of survival to metamorphosis in wild boreal toads (Anaxyrus boreas boreas)
Life history theory suggests that long‐lived, pond‐breeding amphibians should have low and highly variable early life‐stage survival rates, but this theoretical expectation is often untested and the causes of variation are usually unknown. We evaluated the impact of hydroperiod, presence of a pathogen (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis [Bd]),...
Crockett, John G.; Bailey, Larissa L.; Muths, Erin L.Attribution: Fort Collins Science Center, Ecosystems
Year Published: 2020
Conservation decisions under pressure: Lessons from an exercise in rapid response to wildlife disease
Novel outbreaks of emerging pathogens require rapid responses to enable successful mitigation. We simulated a 1‐day emergency meeting where experts were engaged to recommend mitigation strategies for a new outbreak of the amphibian fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans . Despite the inevitable uncertainty, experts suggested...
Canessa, Stefano; Spitzen-van der Sluijs, Annemarieke; Stark, Tariq; Allen, Bryony E.; Bishop, Phillip J.; Bletz, Molly; Briggs, Cheryl J.; Daversa, Dave; Gray, Matthew J.; Griffiths, Richard; Harris, Reid N.; Harrison, Xavier; Hoverman, Jason T.; Jervis, Phillip; Muths, Erin L.; Olson, Deanna H.; Price, Stephen J,; Richards-Zawacki, Corinne L.; Robert, Jacques; Rosa, Goncalo M.; Scheele, Ben C.; Schmidt, B.; Garner, Trenton W. J.Attribution: Fort Collins Science Center, Ecosystems
Pre-USGS Publications
Muths, E. 1999. Dwarf shrew found in Rocky Mountain National Park. Park Science 19(1): 25.
Circulating levels of prolactin and progesterone in a wild population of red kangaroos (Macropus rufus) Marsupialia: Macropodidae
Muths, E., and L.A. Hinds. 1996. Circulating levels of prolactin and progesterone in a wild population of red kangaroos (Macropus rufus) Marsupialia: Macropodidae. General and Comparative Endocrinology. 101: 317-3.
Kangaroo rat bone compared to white rat bone after short-term disuse and exercise
Muths, E., and O.J. Reichman. 1996. Kangaroo rat bone compared to white rat bone after short-term disuse and exercise. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology. 114A(4): 355-3.
Milk composition in a field population of red kangaroos, Macropus rufus (Desmarest) (Macropodidae: Marsupialia)
Muths, E. 1996. Milk composition in a field population of red kangaroos, Macropus rufus (Desmarest) (Macropodidae: Marsupialia). Australian Journal of Zoology. 44: 165-1.
Substrate Discrimination in Burying Beetles, Nicrophorus orbicollis (Coleoptera: Silphidae)
Muths, E. 1991. Substrate Discrimination in Burying Beetles, Nicrophorus orbicollis (Coleoptera: Silphidae). Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society. 64(4): 447-450.
Date published: May 31, 2019
Conservation Research Across Scales in a National Program
In 2000, the USGS Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative - or ARMI - was established, under the direction of the President and Congress, in response to worldwide declines in amphibian populations.
Date published: October 26, 2018
A Unified Research Strategy for Disease Management
As wildlife diseases increase globally, an understanding of host-pathogen relationships can elucidate avenues for management and improve conservation efficacy. Amphibians are among the most threatened groups of wildlife, and disease is a major factor in global amphibian declines.
Attribution: Fish & Wildlife Disease, Wildlife Program, Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center, Fort Collins Science Center, National Wildlife Health Center, New Jersey Water Science Center, Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Western Ecological Research Center, Wetland and Aquatic Research Center, Eastern Ecological Science Center
Date published: September 28, 2018
Large-scale Review of Amphibian Species and Community Response to Climate Change
Amphibian species and community richness has been declining in North America and climate change may play a role in these declines. Global climate change has led to a range shift of many wildlife species and thus understanding how these changes in species distribution can be used to predict amphibian community responses that may improve conservation efforts.
Attribution: Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center, Fort Collins Science Center, Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, South Atlantic Water Science Center (SAWSC), Southwest Biological Science Center, Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center, Western Ecological Research Center, Wetland and Aquatic Research Center, Eastern Ecological Science Center