Amphibians: Provide particular plants as breeding areas or egg laying sites

How is the evidence assessed?
  • Effectiveness
    75%
  • Certainty
    20%
  • Harms
    0%

Study locations

Key messages

  • One small, controlled study in the USA found that salamanders bred in an aquarium heavily planted with java moss and swamp-weed.

About key messages

Key messages provide a descriptive index to studies we have found that test this intervention.

Studies are not directly comparable or of equal value. When making decisions based on this evidence, you should consider factors such as study size, study design, reported metrics and relevance of the study to your situation, rather than simply counting the number of studies that support a particular interpretation.

Supporting evidence from individual studies

  1. A small, controlled study in 1990–1994 of Texas salamanders Eurycea neotenes in Dallas, USA found that captive breeding was successful in a heavily planted aquarium but not in aquariums without plants. Between 1990 and 1993, a pair of salamanders housed in a planted aquarium produced 19 eggs (in February 1991) but none were produced by salamander pairs housed in an aquarium containing a gravel substrate or one with partially buried rocks and rock shards over the same period. The eggs were fixed singly to live plants. Four of the eggs hatched and three larvae were reared to maturity. The planted aquarium contained java moss Vesicularia dubyana and swamp-weed Hygrophila sp.. Eggs were removed to a separate aquarium to avoid predation by the adult salamanders or snails.

    Study and other actions tested
Please cite as:

Jonas, C.S., Timbrell, L.L., Young, F., Petrovan, S.O., Bowkett, A.E. & Smith, R.K. (2020) Management of Captive Animals. Pages 527-553 in: W.J. Sutherland, L.V. Dicks, S.O. Petrovan & R.K. Smith (eds) What Works in Conservation 2020. Open Book Publishers, Cambridge, UK.

 

Where has this evidence come from?

List of journals searched by synopsis

All the journals searched for all synopses

Management of Captive Animals

This Action forms part of the Action Synopsis:

Management of Captive Animals
Management of Captive Animals

Management of Captive Animals - Published 2018

Captive Animal Synopsis

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What Works in Conservation provides expert assessments of the effectiveness of actions, based on summarised evidence, in synopses. Subjects covered so far include amphibians, birds, mammals, forests, peatland and control of freshwater invasive species. More are in progress.

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