The Biodiversity Group
The Biodiversity Group (TBG) is a non-profit, capacity building, science-based wildlife conservation, education and outreach organization based in Arizona. TBG conducts field research in biodiversity hotspots around the globe.
Mission
An international team of wildlife biologists, educators, and photographers dedicated to preserving the smaller majority of animal life on Earth, The Biodiversity Group conserves little or lesser known, vanishing communities of animals in shrinking and disappearing wild places, including species they have newly described to science.
Vision
Through the collection of data by staff and their local and indigenous partners, TBG endeavors to facilitate informed management decisions by people, governments, and land preservation organizations to keep tropical and subtropical biological landscapes intact for future generations. This means that TBG endeavors to use science generated by their staff and volunteers to help protect wild lands, which can ultimately sustain populations of lesser known and overlooked species of imperiled wildlife like glass frogs and butterflies.
Amphibian Decline
The greatest diversity of amphibians occurs in the tropics, between 23.4 degrees latitude on either side of the equator. For relative comparison, in the small tropical country of Ecuador, where TBG works, there are 485 species of amphibians, more than all of the United States and Canada combined.
Although TBG works with herpetiles, fish species and terrestrial, marine, brackish and freshwater invertebrates, the organization is particularly concerned AbOUT The Plight of amphibian populations, which are declining globally in the face of environmental stressors from anthropogenic sources. These include toxins and numerous effects of climate change from emerging and reemerging disease epizootics to increases in the temperature of microhabitats and other environmental stressors.
Of the more than 6,600 described species of amphibian, there are about 5,870 frogs and toads, 585 salamanders and newts, and 185 species of caecilians. Although TBG's own discoveries will add at least 30 names to the list of known amphibians, sadly, the organization has also helped in corroborating the claim that there are now some 170 amphibian species extinct in the wild through their field investigations in targeted range countries.
Scientific research
The TBG's staff of herpetologists and ichthyologists conduct species inventories in Asia and Central and South America, publishing their reports and discoveries in peer-reviewed journals.
Capacity building
By fostering local citizen science, TBG empowers people with the experiences, skills, and tools to steward the ecosystems that surround and sustain them.
Photography
TBG's scientifically trained conservation photographers share the beauty, value, and scientific information with a worldwide audience through their own work and by training local people in the craft of photography.
Current projects
Species inventory projects and capacity building programs, including the Biodiversity PEEK program, are currently underway in Vietnam, Ecuador and northern Mexico.
Campaigns
In August 2014, TBG launched the "Mud Bucket Challenge" after the highly successful ALS fundraiser, on their Facebook page as means to raise funding and awareness for biodiversity conservation initiatives.
Partners
Partners include Reserva Jama-Coaque, Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles, iNaturalist, Tongs, Fundacion Jatun Sachaplace, Ceiba Foundation for Tropical Conservation, Quito's Escuela Politécnica Nacional Departmento de Herpetologia, Fundacion Susan Shepard, One Percent for the Planet, Save the Frogs, Lawson Hammock, Smugmug, Tasmania 40° South, The Biocommunications Association and Third Millennium Alliance, which is TBG's main partner in western Ecuador.