The Tiputini Biodiversity Station (TBS), located in Ecuador’s Yasuní Biosphere Reserve—one of the most biologically diverse regions on Earth—will serve as a key supersite within the Amazon.ia initiative. At Tiputini, Amazon.ia’s five core monitoring approaches: camera traps, passive acoustic sensors, satellite imagery, insects' traps, and environmental DNA (eDNA), will be complemented by TBS’s drone-based monitoring program and other emerging technologies, including LiDAR, multispectral imagery, automated insect-monitoring systems, and long-term field inventories of plants and vertebrates.  

TBS will also work closely with neighboring and partner Indigenous and local communities, engaging and training community scientists to collect biodiversity and environmental data across their territories. This collaboration will extend monitoring beyond the station’s 744 hectares to include the Yasuní National Park and degraded and disturbed sites, providing essential contrasts with Tiputini’s relatively intact hyperdiverse forests and enabling Amazon.ia to assess how biodiversity, ecosystem structure, and ecological processes respond across different disturbance gradients. 

As Principal Investigator, Dr. Gonzalo Rivas-Torres will provide the scientific leadership needed to connect Amazon.ia’s technological capabilities with ecological knowledge, field implementation, community-based monitoring, and conservation priorities. Drawing on his expertise in tropical plant ecology, forest dynamics, invasion ecology, drones, LiDAR, multispectral remote sensing, and long-term biodiversity monitoring, he will coordinate the integration of ground-based observations with drone and satellite data and ensure that the resulting models are ecologically robust and operationally relevant. He will also connect the project with Tiputini’s extensive network of researchers, technology partners, Amazonian field stations, Indigenous and local communities, and conservation organizations, helping Amazon.ia move from technology development to a scalable and inclusive monitoring framework that can support evidence-based conservation and restoration decisions across the Amazon Basin.