Groundbreaking Salamander Climate Study Happening at Horner Sanctuary

SHARE THIS

Groundbreaking Salamander Climate Study Happening at Horner Sanctuary

Shayna Earl holds salamander eggs at Horner Bird and Wildlife Sanctuary.

January 30, 2025 

By Stephanie Godward, Communications and Marketing Director, College of Arts & Sciences 

Salamanders at Horner Bird and Wildlife Sanctuary are playing a critical role in research that will help scientists to better understand a wide range of climate impacts that could have broad implications for the future.  

The untouched nature of the land at Horner is key to the success of this research. 

“It has not been disturbed, and so really what the animals are going to be doing there is what they would be doing most naturally,” said Assistant Professor of Biology Alycia Lackey.  

Lackey and Earl are investigating the effects of heat waves and temperature changes on salamanders, their growth, development and survival, using an array of 27 large tanks at Horner.  The tanks serve as mini ponds in which they can simulate the conditions of natural ponds where salamanders face impacts of our changing climate.    

"This is an understudied area in the climate change literature,” said Ph.D. candidate Shayna Earl. “The novel work we'll be doing will inform us about how climate change can affect salamanders in their ecosystems. So, it's an added bonus that we get to see them at Horner in their natural habitat and study them in a way that hasn't really been done before.”   

The size of the tanks allows the researchers to generate many dynamics of a natural pond.  

"We can make these mini-ponds and study how salamanders are interacting with the food that they eat, and the leaf litter in the ponds, and all of the natural chemistry that would happen,” Lackey said. “In that way, we can really replicate a lot of the things that are true about their natural environments, while still being able to control things, so we can understand these targeted variables that are happening.”  

The salamanders themselves are important to this research because they are particularly sensitive, and can present indicators of a particular environment being stressful or challenging. Salamanders as amphibians are sensitive to temperature, whereas people can regulate their own temperatures.   

"Amphibians take in water and lots of other stuff like chemicals or pollutants into their skin, so they're going to be really sensitive to whatever is in the environment, both in the water and in the soil,” Lackey said. 

Earl noted that the experiments will include 6 total temperature treatments, and because they have 27 tanks, they will be able to have replicates of each temperature treatment.  

"This is a really important part of experimental design, having as many replicates as possible, and the more data we are able to collect, the more tanks we have for each of the specific treatments, the more confident we can be in our findings,” Earl said. 

This is important for communicating the broader implications of their findings, and making predictions when understanding the data. The research findings will also contribute to the pristine land at Horner, as it will allow the scientists to better understand and maintain the biodiversity there as well. 

In addition to providing the scientific world with research that will eventually have a wide range of impacts, this project and the Horner Sanctuary are also providing students with opportunities to conduct research in the field as well. This real-world experience will help students to advance their own careers in the future. Five undergraduate students in particular will be supporting this research during the semester, visiting Horner three times per week to do so. 

"The students will learn how to do field work, learn what it's like to be part of a larger research experience, learn how to do husbandry, and how to take the data or measurements we collect out in the field, bring them back into the lab, and connect that field work with lab work,” Earl said. 

It is all made possible by donor support, for which the researchers are grateful as the project comes to fruition. 

“This has been an idea in my head for four years, and having the donor funding was this huge catalyst to be able to make this site where we can ask these kinds of questions that allow us to see what's happening in the natural environments, but also test it in experiments. The set up that we have there is a real advance,” Lackey said. "Planning how to use the donor funding has initiated really great conversations and the start of collaborations across departments as well. Faculty in Biology, Geography, and Sustainability are all having monthly meetings now, and planning how to develop the site and how to integrate research, and how to integrate student education and outreach groups. We already have plans to bring out Louisville high school students to Horner through the INSPIRE program this summer.”