Plant Climbing by Salamanders: Periodic Availability of Plant-Dwelling Prey

Abstract

Terrestrial salamanders (Plethodon cinereus) leave the forest floor during rainy and foggy nights and climb plants where they forage on plant-dwelling homopterans and hemipterans. Salamanders that climb plants at night ingest a significantly larger volume of food than do conspecifics that forage on the forest floor at night. Plants are not climbed on dry nights when desiccation of the salamanders occurs rapidly. Plant-dwelling insects may provide an important but periodic food resource for the salamanders.