The song of frogs is singular and unique, which is why it is one of the characteristics that scientists seek to capture in order to determine that it is a new species for science.
It is one of the signals that a group of researchers from the Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja (UTPL) are looking for when immersing themselves in the nocturnal thickness of the forests of southern Ecuador. They first catch these sounds. The frogs can be on the branches of the trees (arboreal), on the ground, on the leaves over streams, lagoons or streams or in these, in the midst of the immensity of the foliage.
“Before capturing them to be able to review them and make more detailed analyses, we first record the singing because this is a distinctive concept among the different species, each one has a unique song,” says Diego Armijos, a professor at UTPL and part of the academic group of research.
Some are smaller than the palm of a hand, which makes it difficult to work in the rain and humidity on long walks of five to six hours, since the specimens of new species are in the most pristine ecosystems far from the roads, indicates Armijos . “They are in the best preserved vegetation, in forests, moors with very complicated climatic conditions. They are not such abundant animals. Sometimes we depend on how lucky we are.”
The specialist affirms that in the little explored forests of El Oro, Loja and Zamora Chinchipe 30 species of amphibians (frogs) and five reptiles (three lizards and two snakes) were found, which have already been proven to be new to science. All that remains is to complete the description and publish the information in a scientific article, which will be done in the coming years. “We have already done a morphological and skeletal review of these animals,” says Armijos.
At the moment, with the work of the UTPL, the description of five new species of frogs has already been published since 2018. And during this year it is planned to publish the description of three new ones, which are part of the 30 amphibians found.
The 30 would be added, when published, to the 653 species of amphibians already described and registered in Ecuador, of which 200 are in the ecosystems of the south of the country, Armijos points out.
“It is the least studied region of the country regarding the group of amphibians. Hence, we began field trips to the forests of El Oro, Loja and Zamora Chinchipe, where we realized that there was a large amount of biological diversity to discover. We found new species in the upper part of the province of El Oro, in the Loja canton of Saraguro and on the border between Loja and Zamora Chinchipe and in areas where they had not left the Podocarpus National Park (in Loja).”
Deforestation, forest fires and the introduction of trout in the upper parts of the Inter-Andean alley affect this native fauna and its natural habitat. “This fish eats the larvae of tiny frogs and they don’t have a natural predator in our ecosystems. With this work we had the opportunity to participate in the publication of the Red List of Amphibians of Ecuador, which showed that more than 50% of the country’s amphibian species are in some category of threat”, he maintains.
The contamination of water sources and the effects of climate change are also problems that affect the population of frogs in the country.
The Chilla mountain range, which extends between the provinces of El Oro and Loja, that of Cóndor, in Zamora Chinchipe, the inter-Andean dry valleys of Catamayo and Vilcabamba (in Loja) and the dry forest of the Arenillas Reserve (El Oro) They are another of the sites where there is a great biodiversity not yet described.
“The key is to see physical characteristics that make it stand out. A comparison is made with the databases of the known species and based on the evidence of the morphological characters and the genetic analysis, the conclusion is reached that it is a new species”, says Armijos.
To be officially recognized as new, it has to be published in a scientific journal, which is what would be missing in the case of the 35 whose description will be published in the following years.
The UTPL created the Zoology Museum, which houses the collected specimens and has the endorsement and permits of the Ministry of the Environment, Water and Ecological Transition.
The five already described by the work team of the UTPL Zoology Museum, in collaboration with other institutions in Ecuador and the world, are Pristimantis tiktik, Pristimantis cajanuma, Pristimantis samaniegoi, Pristimantis matildae Y Pristimantis lojanus.
Felipe Serrano, executive director of Nature and Culture International (NCI), maintains that This explosion of discoveries occurs in state and private protected areas, but also in forests that are not under any category of conservation.which puts these new species at risk.
Ecuador is the third country in the world with the largest number of amphibian species (653), only surpassed by Brazil and Colombia. But among the ten nations with the greatest diversity of amphibians, the country has the highest abundance per unit area with more than 250 species per hundred thousand square kilometers.
It is a sample of the national natural wealth, says Serrano. It is a biodiversity, he adds, with environmental services such as food, medicines, fibers, some construction materials, pharmaceuticals and industrial products.
Certain species native to the south of the country have saved humanity from serious epidemics such as malaria, whose cure came from the bark of the cinchona or cinchona trees, still present in the forests of Loja. Or the flourishing industry of tara derivatives (Caesalpinea spinosa), a tree native to Loja and the dry valleys of the country, whose seeds are one of the most recent export products. “In the last five years, more than 180 tons have been exported. Biodiversity is then a fundamental strategic resource for the development of the country”, asserts Serrano.
Biologists from Ecuador and the world are racing against time to record the country’s species, even before they disappear due to threats such as deforestation, mining and the effects of climate change.
In the surroundings of the Podocarpus National Park, at the San Francisco Scientific Station for Nature and International Culture, in Loja, 32 new species of plants have been discovered in the cloud forests of this research area in the last 20 years, Serrano says.
This includes species new to science as well as “new country records.” Among them, several epiphytic plants stand out, but also unique trees such as the meriania de San Francisco (franciscan meriania), named after the botanists who discovered it (Carmen Ulloa and Juergen Homeier) in honor of the river and the scientific station where they found it.
A few kilometers from the scientific station, in the moors that divide Zamora Chinchipe from Loja, the place called Abra de Zamora also stands out, where scientists from the Laboratory of Tropical Ecology and Ecosystem Services of the UTPL have found a total of twelve new species of amphibians .
Among them, those already described, such as the Samaniego frog (Pristimantis samaniegoi) and Matilde’s frog (Pristimantis matildae), whose name is in honor of the woman from Loja who first exercised the right to vote in Latin America.
Towards the south of the Podocarpus National Park in the Numbala Nature Reservemanaged by Nature and Culture International (NCI), the same group of UTPL biologists found, during the past year, five species of amphibians considered new to science that are in the process of being described (within the group of 35 to be published ).
There are also populations of known but threatened species such as the American crocodile (Crocodylus acutus) and the golden-mantled howler monkey (Allouatta palliata aequatorialis), located in the NCI Cazaderos Reserve in Loja.
Darwin Núñez explains that around 97 crocodiles were recorded along 35 kilometers of the Puyango River and the Cazaderos creek, probably the most important continental population reported in the country.
In addition, the discovery of twelve groups of the golden-mantled howler monkey was reported in the dry forests of the reserve, with a total of 119 individuals, a species that is in danger of extinction.
Financing conservation through tourism is an option
There are springs, waterfalls, lagoons in the middle of the dry, cloudy, Amazonian, Andean forest and the paramos that house the biodiversity of flora and fauna of southern Ecuador.
Part of this territory is protected in state protected areas such as the Podocarpus National Park, Yacuri, the Arenillas Ecological Reserve, the El Quimi and Cerro Plateado Biological Reserves, and the Marcos Pérez de Castilla community area (between Azuay and Loja).
Added to these sites are those that are privately protected, such as the Buenaventura Reserve, Jorupe, Utuana, Cazaderos and La Ceiba. These last two are from Nature and Culture International.
Armijos affirms that the municipalities in the area have also welcomed the interest in conserving its natural wealth. “Which helps to consolidate all these protection figures in the region such as the guayacanes reserve.”
The alternative is to generate ecotourism projects in the area to generate infrastructure that allows serving as many tourists as possible. (I)
Source: Eluniverso
Paul is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment and general news. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established herself as a respected voice in the industry.
