Setting up
It has been a long and busy couple of months! Between the months of March and April my team and I, had to pick the sites (48 in total) where the study would take place. That being said, choosing sites is never as easy as one may think. Unfriendly neighbors and wildfires were common during the first weeks and had us running against the clock. Finally, after roaming around the island for a month and a half, we started!
In essence, our days consisted of visiting a site and setting a "chessboard" lookalike grid. This was accomplished with the use of stake flags which mark the locations of cut up shower rod covers. The tubes are to be used by Eleutherodactylus individuals as reproduction sites. The center tree, holds the recorder device which surveys the site for the calls of different Eleutherodactylus species, and the HOBO device which measures relative humidity and temperature.
After setting up, our weekly visits to the 48 sites started. Recording rotations and checking each tube was and still is a part of our daily routine... and as you may have guessed, it was just a matter of time for our different coquí species to discover them.