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Many ground-dwelling amphibians, reptiles, small mammals, insects, and other arthropods seek cover during their resting hours. Their natural hideaways include underground burrows, rotting logs, and leaf litter, which are widely distributed and difficult to discover and observe. To make observation easier, scientists, educators, and students can use a cover board, systematically placing pieces of plywood or other materials in forested, grassy, or wetland habitats for small- and medium-size animals to hide under. An observer can easily discover these animals simply by lifting the boards and looking under them. Cover boards help researchers determine the abundance of animal species in a specific location and are useful in educating students about the environment, wildlife, and ecology. In ecology research projects, standard cover boards consist of 120×120 cm (4×4 ft.) or 120×240 cm (4×8 ft.) sheets of plywood. Cover boards attract–but do not trap or harm–wildlife.
They simply increase the chances of finding animals that can be observed, recorded, and released. Researchers in tall grass prairie regions, for example, used cover boards to assess the effects of burn regimes on herpetofauna (amphibians and reptiles) and to identify invertebrates and other mammals associated with prairie dog colonies (McCaffrey, Wallace, and Ray 2009; Wilgers and Horne 2006). Cover boards helped researchers in Ohio forests study the effect of white-tailed deer on herpetofauna and invertebrates and in tropical forests to assess the effect of habitat fragmentation on salamander species (Greenwald, Petit, and Waite 2008; Marsh et al. 2005).
Some school districts fortunate enough to have large campuses with wild areas or nearby nature centers can also use full-size cover boards for classroom research projects on topics such as amphibian and reptile diversity (Tomasek, Matthews, and Hall 2005). In most school settings, however, smaller, mini cover boards are more practical. Mini cover boards typically attract snails, slugs, earthworms, beetles, ants, small spiders, pillbugs, millipedes, and centipedes but are much less likely than larger boards to harbor snakes or mammals.
Other invertebrate signs such as trails, droppings, burrows, webs, and slime can also be observed under the smaller boards and used to determine organisms present (Eiseman and Charney 2010). Panels of various materials measuring 30×30 cm (12×12 in.) work well as mini cover boards and are generally easy to obtain, either as lumber pieces or as samples from a flooring store. Pieces measuring 15×15 cm (6×6 in.) from various kinds of wood or other materials also work fine but typically attract fewer organisms, as might be expected. Materials used can vary from different kinds of wood, squares of plastic, Plexiglas, carpet, metal, flooring tiles, or any other material that comes in flat pieces and can be sized appropriately.
Sets of mini cover boards can be placed anywhere there is flat ground that can remain undisturbed for several weeks or longer. Location variables that can be used include shade, sun, wet, dry, forest, garden, lawn, or different substrates such as grass, concrete, blacktop, gravel, leaf litter, or bare dirt. Ideally, sets of cover boards can remain in place over several years so data can be collected and compared by different classes to identify changes over time as well as differences between the cover board materials or locations. Options should be made clear to students so they can design an experiment with appropriate variables and controls. For example, sets of mini cover boards of oak, pine, maple, and floor tiles might be placed in locations with different substrates such as grass, leaf litter, sand, and gravel, giving your students options for designing experiments ranging from different cover board materials in the same habitat to a single cover board material in four different habitats.
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