CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Anuran amphibians of the Andean-Patagonian forest show a wide variety of adaptations to different aquatic environments and regional environmental conditions. These adaptations include particularities in their life cycles, such as that all or most of the cycle occur out of water. This work summarizes information about the life cycle of the anuran Batrachyla taeniata, or banded wood frog, which reproduces from midsummer to midautumn, laying eggs out of the water where they are incubated in moist forest soil. Particularly our studies were carried out in the forest of the Municipal Park Llao Llao, where the species lives in different aquatic environments. Tadpoles hatch when autumn rains cause an increase in water level or during flooding of a wetland, in a state of development that allows them to feed immediately and continue their growth in the water at low temperatures for several months before arrival of spring. Through field observations and incubation of eggs under laboratory conditions we were able to determine the high dependence that exists between precipitation, temperature and the effective development of eggs and their subsequent hatching. Finally, we point out the potential effects of climate change on a regional scale and how this phenomenon could affect the survival of this typical species of the Nahuel Huapi National Park.