video Titicaca water frog

here we want to share a video created by us

titicaca water frog Telmatobius culeus from Arturo Munoz on Vimeo.

Rana gigante del Titicaca Telmatobius culeus from Arturo Munoz on Vimeo.

Titicaca water frog population, after the massive mortalities

In April 2015 we had massive mortalities of the Titicaca water frog population in the small side of the Lake (see our previous publications). now after that we have been monitoring the situation every month to see how big was the problem, if there is still the frog over there and to get some numbers.

searching frogs in different areas of the lake

We already visited several places in the big side of the lake and the small side where we had the problems. Unfortunately in the small side of the lake the situation is not going well... we carried out several transects and no frog was found in all these areas where the forg was previously common. 

An individual found in the area close to the big side of the lake

The good thing is that in the big side of the lake the populations is going ok and in one place of the small side near to the big side we also found alive frogs, even that are in very small numbers that give us a hope.

taking samples swabs of the frog

We are going to monitor these populations and these areas to have a real idea of the situation and we are already organizing some actions that will allow us to do something for this species, and we hope that we are not too late.

taking samples of substract from the botom of the lake

Titicaca expedition: lago menor II, the massive mortalities

The water in the area is not anymore green but not yet clear

Today was a long day, early in the morning we went out to the lake near Puerto Perez, it seems that we are a little bit late, most of the frogs are already decomposed, the small sample of 106 dead frogs we collected yesterday were in very bad conditions, probably more than one week already dead. Today going to the south by boat we found some dead frogs, not so many as yesterday, the man from the boat told us that the birds ate the frogs and others just decomposed.

Dead frog found in the shore of the lake

Even that we found some frogs that were in the shore of the lake, and not just that, but also several dead birds and mostly juveniles, not sure about the reason of this but probably can be associated to this phenomenon? At the moment we just took some samples to analyze in the future.

one of the dead birds in the shore of the lake

We also wanted to know how was the situation in the center of the “lago menor”. For that we were diving in this area for some minutes and where a couple of years ago was common to see several frogs, we just found dead frogs, not so many as in the shore, and also these frogs were not so decomposed as the others and we think that these frogs have from two to five days that are dead and some of them even the same day. We think that probably these frogs were able to survive the weeks when the lake was with the problem but they died some days after.

Unfortunately we did not find any living frog in all this area, this is the first time we found 100% of the frogs dead, a couple of years ago we found in other area about 80% of the frogs dead, but never like this… we are not sure if there are still live frogs and we are planning now to monitor this area in the future to see if there were some strong enough frogs that were able to survive.

One of the forgs that were dead in the center of the lago menor

We also came back with more questions and concerns, but we also saw people and institutions that are interested to help with this situation and we really hope that we can work together to try to save this species in this area.

swabing a dead frog for BD analysis

Now we need to start analyzing the samples and the data and to see what are going to be the next steps and we think everybody has something that can do and we really hope that we can change this situation for a future for this species.

Titicaca expedition: lago menor, the massive mortalities

Collecting the dead frogs in the Lago menor

Today we were working in the lago menor side of the lake, our first two localities were not so different than before, even in one of the localities the water was not green anymore, but we noticed a big amount of zooplankton in the water, probably a normal situation after an explosion of phytoplankton.

We were travelling a lot to try to cover different areas and at the end of the day we went out by boat just some minutes and when we arrived to a spot of 3 meters by 2 we were able to find in less than 5 minutes 106 dead individuals, this with almost no effort just getting with the net the frogs that were floating in the surface of the lake, but we also noticed that there were much more individuals under the vegetation, but we did not take all these animals because was almost night.

Some of the dead frogs in the lake

With the samples we are collecting until now we saw that this event caused the death of these frogs from 5 to 10 days but the villagers told us that before there were much more but they took out those because the smell was very bad. From all the dead individuals we found we carried out some post-mortem analysis and we found that most of the dead frogs were females with eggs and in several cases the frogs had a not normal muddy substance as gut content.

Taking out the dead frogs

We are trying to collect as much samples as possible for future analysis and to try to understand what is causing this problem that it seems that is associated with the water that arrives in the rivers of the region every rainy season. But talking with the people here they say that is the first time that this happens at that scale. Also for us it was impressing to see that amount of dead frogs and even we saw in the past several deaths, we never saw at this scale.

Postmortem analysis, several females with eggs

Tomorrow we are going to start working with the boat in the area to see how the situation is; also diving in the area to see how is going in the open areas where normally the frogs are also present.

Working with the postmortem analysis

Today we were working in the lago menor side of the lake, our first two localities were not so different than before, even in one of the localities the water was not green anymore, but we noticed a big amount of zooplankton in the water, probably a normal situation after an explosion of phytoplankton.

We were traveling a lot to try to cover different areas and at the end of the day we went out by boat just some minutes and when we arrived to a spot of 3 meters by 2 we were able to find in less than 5 minutes 106 dead individuals, this with almost any effort just getting with the net the frogs that were floating in the surface of the lake, but we also noticed that there were much more individuals under the vegetation, but we did not take all these animals because was almost night.

With the samples we are collecting until now we saw that this event caused the death of these forgs from 5 to 10 days but the villagers told us that before there were much more but they took out those because the smell was very bad. From all the dead individuals we found we carried out some post-mortem analysis and we found that most of the dead frogs were females with eggs and in several cases the frogs had a not normal muddy substance as gut content.

We are trying to collect as much samples as possible for future analysis and to try to understand what is causing this problem that it seems that is associated with the water that arrives in the rivers of rthe region every rainy season, but talking with the people here they say that is the first time that this happens at that scale. Also for us it was impressing to see that amount of dead frogs and even we saw in the past several deaths, we never saw at this scale.

Tomorrow we are going to start working with the boat in the area to see how the situation is; also diving in the area to see how is going in the open areas where normally the frogs are also present.

we hope that with this people and authorities will realize about the real problem we have here in the lake and that the change will come.

Titicaca expedition, in the lake, the lago mayor, the massive mortalities

Now from Titicaca Lake, after our first days we are working in different areas of the lake. We decided to work first in places we knew the populations of Titicaca water frog were doing well and where previously were no problems. We decided this for biosecurity reasons, because it will be very difficult for us to clean and disinfect all our equipment and diving gear in a short term. So if we move from places with less risk to others with more we think will be better.

A frog in the lake, in the Lago mayor side

 Well now our first observations, at least from the locations of the Lago mayor of the lake we found that there is no a visual change in the water, also with the analysis we did with some parameters such as ammonium, nitrite, phosphates, all of these parameters were the same as the previous months, also with the temperature, we saw in our data that there is nothing different or special.

Just in case we took different samples such as subtract of the bottom of the lake, water, different aquatic organism, all these to analyze for possible pollutants.

monitoring the frog populations in the lake

Now about the frogs, we did not see any difference, the numbers of frogs in the areas we were working were the same, also the numbers of dead frogs that we normally find where the same, so nothing special, we even saw different clutches with eggs of the frog developing very well, we did not see just one but several clutches that in the case there was something wrong with the water they would be dead.

an egg of Telmatobius culeus in the lago mayor

So for now we can say that in the side of the Lago mayor there are no massive deaths of frogs. Tomorrow we are going to start to work in the Lago menor of the lake where the deaths were recorded by the media and then we will have a better idea how is the situation over there.

expedition to Titicaca lake

As you may know last week we had bad news about the situation of the frogs in Titicaca lake, now after some planning with the team of the project and some organizations and government we are now getting ready to go to the field and to see what is happening, to evaluate the real status of the frogs and also to take different kind of samples such as water quality, heavy metals, different tissues for different kind of analysis that can provide us a clue that can explain why the frogs are dying in the Lake.

the next days we will update our blog once a day so we can share the findings of this expedition, we more than welcome suggestions and comments about this

getting ready for the fieldwork in Titicaca Lake 

There is something wrong with the lake

Dead frog in one of the localities of Titcaca lake

Working in the lake the last years, allowed us to see some changes and events. This is the case of the dead frogs that we were finding all the time, but now we  this phenomenon is much more common, even in areas that seems to be in good conditions. Now everytime we monitor the lake we find more dead frogs.

Dead Titicaca water Frog and Titicaca grib

We are studying and tryingto understand what happens in the lake, and we found some clues that show us a synergy among different factors such as a fungal disease that arrived to the lake a couple of years ago and pollution of the water, where some areas the situation can be very bad.

Monitoring the deaths of the Titicaca water frog

Since January 2015 we were able to witness some changes in the lake, we found that one of the areas pollution is increasing, more dead frogs are found, macroinvertebrate structure is changing among others. Some time ago we found dead frogs in big numbers and all at the same time, now these last months we found the same thing but not just that, now the water is completely green, not being possible to find our traps during our dives or frogs under the water…
Now we can see in the news that more people are talking about this problem
Erbol, Los tiempos, la razon, and we hope this situation will change.

Green color of the water in all the "Lago menor", photo January 2015

All the local communities around the “Lago menor” were talking about this phenomenon, where the water turned completely green. And there are a lot of dead frogs and also no fish anymore. There is something happening in this area and we need to change things. We see now the first signals that there are problems in the lake, factors that are affecting not just to a critically endangered species, but also to local communities who are having problems to find fish that is one of their main resources.

water of one of the localities that is completely green,

photo January 2015

Nature tell us very clear that something is wrong and we need to act now, otherwise this will have a bad end, Fortunately local communities realize that this phenomenon is not normal, they want to change this situation and we think that we need to help them to understand the situation and also to try to take actions at different levels to prevent this kind of problems.