The sound of biogeography: assessing the impacts of climate change on amphibians through new acoustic monitoring technologies (CGL2017-88764-R)

Providing original knowledge relevant to predict, mitigate, and perhaps prevent the potential impacts of climate change on biodiversity is a key and urgent challenge for current biology. Recent climate change is a global risk for conservation of amphibians, the most endangered group of vertebrates, and particularly in tropical regions, where amphibian diversity reaches its highest rates. Species distribution models based on functional traits have been proposed to provide more robust predictions of climate-induced shifts in biodiversity patterns than commonly used correlative models. The present project aims at forecasting the responses and vulnerability to climate change of tropical and temperate zone amphibian anurans at multiple spatial and temporal scales, through a novel integration of two scientific disciplines, bioacoustics and biogeography. Using new tools in acoustic monitoring, signal processing and species distribution modelling, we are conducting a study acting as framework for the implementation of these new methodologies, showing the promising advances emerging from the synergy between these two disciplines. This is a 3-year project conducted by a multidisciplinary international network of world-recognized researchers (Spain, France and Brazil).