Anne Sabol and Rachel Prokopius have defended their proposals today. Anne's proposal is titled The impact of urbanization on the life history of an invasive amphibian. Rachel's proposal is titled Living with Chytrid: The roles behavior and resource allocation play in surviving on a pathogen-ridden planet. Congrats to both Anne and Rachel!

Our lab and collaborator Alex Ttito from the Museo de Biodiversidad in Cusco named a new species of terrestrial-breeding frog, Pristimantis achupalla. The species epithet, achupalla, is a Quechua noun for bromeliads. These minute frogs inhabit water-filled bromeliads, despite their likely (but presumed) direct-development mode of laying eggs in moist environments, with embryos bypassing the tadpole stages and tiny froglets hatching from the terrestrial eggs. The type locality is near Thiuni, in the Department of Puno (province of Carabaya) in the upper watershed of a tributary of the Inambari River. This is the same locality where we also discovered Noblella thiuni and Psychrophrynella glauca, all of them during a short hike to the edge of the cloud forest. The article appeared today in the open access journal PeerJ.

This month's lab contribution to amphibian biodiversity is the description of a new species of toad from the montane forests of northern Peru: Rhinella moralesi. Along with collaborators Edgar Lehr, Juan Carlos Cusi, Lily Rodriguez, Pablo Venegas and Luis Alberto Garcia, we name the new species to honor the memory of the late Peruvian herpetologist Victor Morales, who at the time of his untimely death was professor at Universidad Ricardo Palma in Lima.

We tentatively assign the new species to the Rhinella festae species Group based on morphological similarities with its other 19 members. It is characterised by large size (maximum SVL 91.6 mm in females), a pointed and protruding snout that is posteroventrally inclined, absence of a visible tympanic annulus and tympanic membrane, long parotoid glands in contact with upper eyelid, presence of a dorsolateral row of enlarged tubercles, outer dorsolateral tarsus surface with a subconical ridge of fused tubercles, and absence of subgular vocal sac and vocal slits in males. 

The species has been observed in both the San Martin and Amazonas departments, at elevations around 1700-2300 m a.s.l. At one of the locations, at least one specimen was infected with the pathogenic chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, which has caused population declines and extirpations in many species of toads (Bufonidae family). It is unclear what effect this pathogen has on Rhinella moralesi. 

The article appeared today in the open-access journal Taxonomy.

​FIU researcher Alessandro Catenazzi helped gather the critical information needed to expedite the establishment of nine new protected areas in one of the most biologically diverse regions of Peru.

The Institute of Environment biologist was part of a large collaborative conservation effort led by the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. The team’s extensive rapid biological and social inventory work helped quadruple the previous number of protected areas in Loreto, an expanse of Amazonian lowlands and Andean foothills bordering Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador. 

The study led by Dr. Nigel Pitman (Field Museum) was published today in Science Advances. Read more about our lab's contribution at https://news.fiu.edu/2021/researcher-helps-collect-key-data-to-establish-9-new-protected-areas-in-perunews.fiu.edu/2021/researcher-helps-collect-key-data-to-establish-9-new-protected-areas-in-peru. 

This month we have started work on our NSF-funded project in the eastern slopes of the Andes near Manu National Park. We have been working at this location for 25 years, and witnessed the dramatic collapse of montane frog communities in the early 2000s, along with the spread of the lethal frog chytrid fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis). While many stream-breeding frogs disappeared during the first epizootics in 2002-2006, most terrestrial-breeding species such as Oreobates granulosus in the inset photograph are still relatively abundant, despite many species being highly susceptible to chytridiomycosis. One possible explanation for their persistence is that these frogs have limited contact with water, and thus are less exposed to infection by the fungus' aquatic zoospores. The current project aims to explain how epizootics occur among terrestrial-breeding frogs, and how climate interacts with disease dynamics to trigger these epizootics.

During this first field trip, we established 12 transects (see photo below for a forest immersion at one of our transects), each 100 m long, in different forest habitats including riparian forest, disturbed areas (old landslides/stream beds), slope and ridge forests. We are capturing, marking and releasing all frogs (except for very small juveniles) found along these transects during three consecutive nights. We gently swab the skin of each frog to determine whether they are infected. So far the species with the highest recapture rate is Pristimantis toftae (pic right): one individual was even captured all three nights, and perched on the same fern!​​

The surveys planned over the next two years will allow us to collect natural history information on species that are rarely studied in detail. Data on movements, infection history, changes in spatial distribution and abundance will inform models on disease dynamics, with the hope of increasing our understanding of how a water-dependent fungus can spread among terrestrial organisms.

​Unfortunately, our findings also confirmed that most stream-breeding frogs continue to be missing from these forests. However, a few species have started to recover, such as the toad Rhinella leptoscelis. We found this toad in three of our transects. Another interesting find was Pristimantis antisuyu (pic left), a species described only in 2018, which belongs to a group of Pristimantis frogs with cruciform eyes.

Unfortunately, our findings also confirmed that most stream-breeding frogs continue to be missing from these forests. However, a few species have started to recover, such as the toad Rhinella leptoscelis. We found this toad in three of our transects. Another interesting find was Pristimantis antisuyu (pic left), a species described only in 2018, which belongs to a group of Pristimantis frogs with cruciform eyes.

3D view of one of the transects in the montane forests near Manu National Park, Peru. Below, field team during the first trip in Many 2021.

Two years ago we reported on the discovery of two new species of terrestrial breeding frogs, Pristimantis antisuyu and P. erythroinguinis from Manu National Park in Cusco and Madre de Dios, in the Amazonian Andes and foothills. This month we add another closely related species, also with cruciform eyes, from another protected area: El Sira Communal Reserve. The description, led by our collaborator Germán Chávez, was published in the last issue of the online journal Evolutionary Systematics. 

The name of the new species, Pristimantis sira, honors the protected area. Although P. sira shares several morphological characteristics with P. antisuyu, P. cruciocularis, and P. erythroinguinis, it can easily be distinguished by the lack of inguinal spots, which vary from yellow to red in the other species. We observed P. sira  on leaves, at 1–1.7 m height, in the forests of the eastern slopes of the mountains of El Sira Communal Reserve, from 1500 to 2200 m a.s.l.The habitat at 1500 m a.s.l. is a montane forest, with riparian vegetation consisting mainly of bushes, tree ferns and trees with a canopy ~20 m tall (see pics below).

El Sira Communal Reserve is located on the eastern slopes of the Andes in central Peru, and protects about 616 thousand hectares of primary forest. El Sira is the highest cordillera adjacent to the Ucayali River, going from 200 m to 2200 m a.s.l., and is bordered by the Pachitea river (which eventually flows into the Ucayali), further isolating the El Sira mountains as the eastern branch of the Andes in the Ucayali basin. Because of the difficult access and rough topography, El Sira is likely one of the most unexplored places of Peru, and likely to harbor additional species waiting to be discovered and named.

Earlier this morning, lab member and PhD student Anne Sabol passed her quals - congratulations Anne! 

Marsupial frogs are fairly diverse in the Andes, with over 75 species of Gastrotheca, and there are many cryptic species yet to be discovered. Our lab contribution, in collaboration to leading author Pablo Venegas, led to the discovery of a new species from the Cordillera de Colán in northern Peru. The new species, named Gastrotheca gemma lives in the páramo and the ecotone between páramo and humid montane forest of Cordillera de Colán, at elevations around 3100-3200 m.

Lab member and PhD student Rachel Prokopius passed her qualifying exams today. She had completed her written exams earlier in March. Congrats Rachel!

Along with collaborators Edgar Lehr and Shenyu Lyu, we described a new species of terrestrial-breeding frog from the region of Cajamarca in northern Peru. Pristimantis astralos is only known from its type locality at 3600 m a.s.l. in the Cordillera Occidental. Mining operations, and especially large-scale dumping of mining debris at the type locality over the last decade, have destroyed the type locality and caused the extirpation of the population at the type locality (see Google Earth pic below). 

Peru has a thriving mining industry, and is a major producer of metals including copper, gold and zinc. This industry generates important economic benefits but can also cause environmental degradation and biodiversity loss at scales from local to regional.  High-elevation tropical ecosystems are rich in endemic species, and thus even localized habitat destruction could contribute to species extinction. To prevent extinctions, we need better information concerning the distribution of endemic species, which requires surveys in the field by knowledgeable herpetologists.

Citation: Lehr, E., S. Lyu and A. Catenazzi. 2021. A new species of Pristimantis (Amphibia, Anura, Strabomantidae) from a mining area in the Cordillera Occidental of northern Peru (Región Cajamarca). Salamandra 57: 15-26.