Last Updated: 3/15/2015

Our current project at Biokryptos is Tepui Watch - a project with the ambitious objective of surveying and cataloging the sum total biodiversity of Auyan Tepui. The methodology we use is a combination of long term camera trap surveillance, aerial surveillance, satellite image analysis and GIS analysis with transect surveys of Auyan Tepui to develop baseline biodiversity measurements of the summit and talus slope ecosystems and close research gaps. Tepui Watch  utilizes a small network of trail cameras in three different tepui ecosystems to photograph both endemic summit fauna and obtain evidence of lowland vertebrates on the tepui summits, which have been observed and documented by Venezuelan scientists but not formally published in academia. The project combines field research with technology and methodology transfers to indigenous Pemon and Venezuelan guides and experts who are trained in the use of trail cameras to monitor the tepui environment. Relevant discoveries are submitted for publication in peer reviewed academic journals. The model of minimally invasive field surveillance we have developed for Tepui Watch can be translated and refined for future utilization across the entire Pantepui region. We intend to use this model in the future to focus on the under-surveyed and unexplored tepuis of the Pantepui ecoregion, to close research and exploration gaps after gap analysis is conducted.
Tepui Watch was preceded by the Auyan Tepui Expedition 2014, a field test and expansion of the methods developed during the camera trapping pilot study in 2012. At the conclusion of Tepui Watch, Biokryptos team members will participate in a follow up expedition to Auyan Tepui.  Future expeditions to Auyan will be based on the data received from Tepui Watch, during which key areas of high faunal diversity noted during camera trapping will be explored and surveyed. Biokryptos is also looking into methods for non-invasive field research beyond the use of camera traps, integrating cutting edge methods in environmental DNA collection and analysis with gap analysis, all while expanding  our network of camera traps.