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Context The effects of global climate change are threatening biodiversity, with particular concern for amphibians, whose survival often depends on specific abiotic conditions. To predict how future climate change will affect amphibian populations, it is first necessary to understand how patterns of abundance are shaped by multiple environmental conditions at both local and regional scales.

Objectives Plethodontid salamander are a group of lungless ectotherms that require cool and moist habitats to survive. While the broad elevational distribution and abundance patterns are well-understood, other important abiotic gradients exist within montane systems that are contributing to fine-scale spatial abundance patterns. We aim to assess the fine-scale spatial abundance of a plethodontid salamander across two key environmental gradients: temperature and moisture.

Methods We conducted area-constrained repeated point-count surveys at plots situated across temperature and moisture gradients in western North Carolina. Each plot was surveyed on 4 occasions, and site and survey-level covariates were measured.

Results We found heterogeneous abundance patterns across these two gradients whereby warmer low elevations contain the greatest abundance near stream sides, where conditions are cooler and wetter than the regional landscape. At cooler, higher elevations, salamanders are distributed more uniformly across the broader landscape, likely as a result of the suitable regional climate.

Conclusions Fine-scale habitat associations of plethodontids are driven by temperature and moisture, and the spatial patterns of suitable microhabitats drive regional scale patterns. Incorporating multiple environmental gradients provides a more biologically relevant prediction of abundance patterns, which will help inform conservation and management strategies especially in the context of climate change.