Community ecology and systematics of salamander (Caudata: plethodontidae) assemblages using neotropical and temperate models

This study is focused on cryptic sympatric lineages of plethodontid salamanders. As sister taxa tend to share similar niche requirements, a problem exacerbated by morphological similarity, how cryptic sympatric lineages coexist and avoid competition merits research. Typically coexistence is predicated on a partitioning of niche to avoid resource competition, which results in a divergence of morphology. Cryptic sympatry, wherein two species maintain near identical morphology despite overlapping distributions, merits study and challenges the niche concept and the idea of one species to a niche. I first examined a case of sympatry from Honduras in the Nanotriton complex, and then examined the impacts of increasing ensemble complexity on niche in temperate Desmognathus species.