In the canton of Aargau, hundreds of new ponds have been constructed since the 1990s to benefit declining amphibian populations. This dataset consists of monitoring data for all 12 pond-breeding amphibian species in the canton of Aargau from 1999 to 2019 in 856 ponds, and environmental variables that describe the ponds and the landscape surrounding the ponds. Species observation data is detection/non-detection data from repeat visits during survey years, during which all potentially suitable ponds in an area were surveyed. Environmental variables describing the ponds are whether the pond has been newly constructed since 1991 or not, pond age (if constructed), elevation a.s.l., the water surface area, and whether the water table fluctuates or not. Environmental variables describing the surroundings of the ponds are the percent area of forest within a circular buffer of radius 100m around the pond, the area of large (width ≥6m) roads within a circular buffer of radius 1km around the pond, as well as structural and potential population connectivity, quantified by three different metrics each.
The canton of Aargau is the owner of the monitoring data; the original datafile is only disclosed upon request and in consultation with the canton of Aargau.
The edited dataset contains cleaned observation data for the 12 amphibian species, as well as compiled and edited covariate data and code to fit dynamic occupancy models.