Behavioral Ecology of the Eastern Red-Backed Salamander ─ 50 Years of Research

The small, terrestrial eastern red-backed salamander is abundant on many forest floors of northeastern North America. Dr. Robert Jaeger and many of his graduate students spent over 50 years studying this species in New York and Virginia, using ecological techniques in forests and behavioral experiments in laboratory chambers in an attempt to understand how this species interacts with other species in the forest and the components of its intra- and intersexual social behaviors.

The competitive and social behaviors of this species are unusually complex for an amphibian. This species is highly aggressive towards other similar-size species where they cohabit in forests, often leading to very little geographic overlap between the species. The authors examine the fascinating behavioral traits of this species including social monogamy, mutual mate guarding, sexual coercion, inter-species communication, and conflict resolution.

Robert G. Jager is a retired former Professor of Biology at the Unviersity of Lousiana at Lafayette. He has spent the last forty years working on territoriality and interspecific competition in the red-backed salamanders, Plethodon cinereus. He is currently retired but continues to publish actively. Current research examines social behavior and, in particular, social monogamy/polygamy in red-backed salamanders.

Birgit Gollman is a Researcher at the Institut fur Zoologie at the Universitat Wien in Vienna, Austria.

Caitlin Gabor is a Professor of Biology at Texas State University.

Nancy Kohn is an adjunct faculty member in the department of Biology at the College of New Jersey.

Carl D. Anthony is a Professor in the Biology Department at John Carroll University.