A terrestrial crustacean, the crayfish, creates widespread fine-scale landforms (mounds or "chimneys") on the floodplain of the Roanoke River in eastern North Carolina, U.S.A. These mounds are typically 12 cm high and 8 cm in diameter, and are composed of extremely high concentrations of clay. Non-crayfish-affected soils on the floodplain, regardless of coarser-scale landform type, are dominated by sand, illustrating that crayfish are a primary mechanism for concentrating clay and creating spatial heterogeneity on the floodplain.
Density was estimated for three populations of eastern moles Scalopus aquaticus Linnaeus, 1758, in South Carolina using a trapping grid and assessment lines. Assessment line data were based upon the repair of holes punched into surface tunnels of the animals. Using a new method of analysis for assessment line data, a logistic curve was fitted to the data. Density estimates based upon these analyses were (95% confidence intervals in parentheses) 3.02 (1.90 - 4.98), 2.73 (1.48 - 12.52), and 1.71 (0.86 - 2.69) moles/ha. In previous studies using assessment line data to estimate density, obtaining confidence intervals for the density estimate presented theoretical problems. In this study, Monte Carlo procedures were used to obtain an estimate of the approximate 95% confidence intervals for density. The analytical methods used in the present study eliminate the concepts of boundary strip width (strict sense) and the occurrence of distinctive zones with constant capture probabilities, and as such, represent important conceptual improvements of the assessment line density estimation method.