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
1 April 2024 4:49pm
Great to see more work going into freshwater PAM! I would recommend also touching base with Jack Greenhalgh's Freshwaster Sounds Archive! And feel free to reach out if Arbimon would be helpful for your data analyses :)
5 April 2024 12:13pm
Congratulations, very exciting! Keep us updated!
Liz Ferguson
Ocean Science Analytics
7 April 2024 6:09pm
This is so cool @Mauricio_Akmentins - congrats and look forward to seeing your project evolve!
1 May 2024 5:17pm
Congratulations! My first hydromoth was just arrived yesterday and so excited! Looking forward for the update from your project!!!
Carly Batist