Eastern collared lizards (Crotophytus collaris collaris) were a Missouri state endangered species when this study began in 1982 due to massive local extinction on glades in the Ozarks in central North America.  Translocation coupled with glade restoration was initiated in the 1980’s, including reintroductions starting in 1984 on Stegall Mountain in southern Missouri.  The translocated populations underwent three distinct demographic phases:  1) an isolate phase with no net growth in population size, no colonization of nearby glades, and almost no dispersal among populations, 2) a colonizing phase of high dispersal, colonization of new glades, and population growth that started with the onset of prescribed woodland burning, and 3) a stable metapopulation phase established by 2000 on Stegall Mountain in which the number of occupied glades, total population size, and measures of genetic variation were roughly constant.  The data in this dryad submission are association with an in press paper (2022) in Animal Conservation that used these data to infer the age of 1162 marked individuals on the basis of distinct color phases and to assign age-probabilities to 391 marked individuals first captured with adult coloration based on time-of-capture within the field season and snout-vent length, as calibrated from following 529 individuals first captured as hatchlings.  Age structure differed significantly between phases.  The isolate phase was characterized by an old age structure.  The colonization phase had a younger age structure and much more recruitment.  The stable metapopulation phase had an intermediate age structure.  These dynamic age structure attributes show that species cannot be regarded as static units, and ignoring this dynamism can result in poor conservation practice.  These results also validate age-structure as a monitoring device for a conservation program and a tool to identify significant shifts in the environment or management that have a conservation impact, in this case prescribed woodland burning.

The raw information in this file was written down in field notebooks by the collector at the time of capture.  All these notebooks are in the procession of Alan Templeton.  Alan Templeton assembled all of these data from the field notebooks into this Excel file.  Typically, the field data were entered into the Excel file the evening after a day of collection.  All entries were double-checked for accuracy of transcription from the field notebooks.

The maps were made by overlaying aerial photographs with extensive ground-trothing upon standard topographic maps from the USGS.

Latitude and longitude of central glade positions were taken with a handheld Garmin GPS unit and then downloaded directly from the device.

The data includes five files:

PECK RANCH COLLARED LIZARD DATA, an Excel file giving the capture/recapture data on collared lizard populations translocated to the Peck Ranch Conservation Area between 1984 and 1989 and their subsequent fate through 2014.

Supplementary Files:

STEGALL AND MULE MOUNTAIN GLADES, a PDF file showing the glades with numbers on Stegall and Mule Mountains overplayed upon a topographic map.

THORNY MOUNTAIN GLADES, a PDF file showing the glades with numbers on Thorny Mountain overplayed upon a topographic map.

MILL MOUNTAIN GLADES, a PDF file showing the glades with numbers on Mill Mountain overplayed upon a topographic map. 

PECK GLADE GPS WAYPOINTS, a text file that gives the latitude and longitude of the glades in this study as determined by GPS.