text: This high dependency on a quality nest site supports the theory that many terrestrial salamanders, including S. atra, engage in territorial behaviors. Capture-recapture methods suggest that the species is very stationary;  was the maximum observed distance traveled by one individual during the summer season. About 120 individuals per hectare were counted in most suitable areas with over 2000 individuals per hectare also observed, suggesting that this rather cryptic species is quite abundant.
  Territorial behavior
  They employ scent-marking techniques for territorial behaviors, and to mark their territories using fecal pellets so they can identify their own shelters. Scent-marking is an intra-species communication, where chemical signals convey specific messages to other S. atra individuals. Alpine salamanders can determine if a found fecal pellet has been left by a member of their same sex and/or species. Thus, this technique serves a double purpose to warn other salamanders that that particular location has already been claimed.
  Females are more likely to return to their home site, while males are more emboldened to enter another male's territory. Their fecal pellets allow them to both participate in homing behavior, or returning to their own site, and territoriality, and determine intruders on their territory or invade the spaces of others.
  Conservation
  Alpine salamanders are not resilient to habitat changes— few terrestrial salamanders are— so risks of climate change altering their living spaces is severe. Although alpine salamanders are listed as Least Concern on IUCN Red List, their numbers are decreasing. Additionally, some subspecies of S. atra are in greater danger. Population numbers are declining in S. a. aurorae, for example.