Observing over decades
Counting amphibians is only the beginning.
The programme was designed in 2006 by the SOSanfibios team and park staff. Twenty-four sites are visited several times each season to record the abundance of every species.
The methods combine straightforward field equipment with temperature sensors, photography, tissue samples and genetic analysis. An average of twenty-one people take part each year.
The study records natural variation, human-driven change, the spread of ranavirus, longer breeding seasons at high elevations and degradation at heavily visited sites.
Long-term monitoring allows us to read populations, pathogens and climate change together.
Fourteen years of data turned a counting programme into an integrated platform for ecological research.
