In our project awarded with the "2024 WILDLABS Awards", we will develop the first Underwater Passive Acoustic Monitoring (UPAM) program to assess the conservation status and for the long-term monitoring of population trends of an Andean water frog in the high-altitude arid environment of the Central Andean Puna ecoregion of northwestern Argentina.

The main objective of our project is testing the existing technologies of automated underwater-recording devices (HydroMoth - GoupGets) combined with automated species recognition software (Kaleidoscope Pro - Wildlife Acoustics) and environmental sensors (HOBO data loggers) in the extreme environment of high-Andes Puna to develop a standardized monitoring tool for scientific-based management decisions towards the conservation of the threatened Pozuelos’ rusted frog (Telmatobius rubigo) in the core area of the MAB-UNESCO Laguna de Pozuelos Biosphere Reserve in Jujuy province in NW Argentina. 

The output of our work is the development of a UPAM protocol based on open-source automated recording units for survey aquatic biodiversity as a response to the increasing environmental problems that freshwater ecosystems face. This protocol will be destinated to protected areas management, community-based monitoring, and to measure the impact of economic activities on freshwater resources