Mónica Páez Vacas

Born in Quito, Ecuador, Mónica Páez is an evolutionary ecologist and conservation geneticist whose research focuses on the processes that promote and maintain biodiversity, particularly in tropical ecosystems, and on how ecological and evolutionary knowledge can be translated into effective conservation strategies. Her research integrates landscape genetics and genomics, thermal biology, ecological studies, and conservation genetics and genomics, with a particular focus on amphibians, including poison frogs and the vulnerable Harlequin frogs of Ecuador.

She obtained her undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador. She subsequently received a Fulbright Scholarship to pursue a Ph.D. in Ecology, with a focus on Evolution, at Colorado State University in the United States. She later completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Patagonian Center–CONICET in Argentina. Dr. Páez-Vacas has worked as a faculty member in Ecuador for approximately ten years, combining research and teaching with academic leadership and administration.

Research Interests

• Evolution, Ecology, Evolutionary Ecology, Conservation Genetics, Conservation Biology, Population Genetics and Genomics, Herpetology.

Current Projects

Evolutionary ecology and conservation of frogs in the Andes.c

Selected Publications

Artículos:

Páez‐Vacas, M. I., Carvajal‐Endara, S., Baer, N., Edwards, C. E., Brant, R., Maldonado‐Castro, G., … & Coloma, L. A. (2026). Environmental DNA succeeds in detecting a low‐density population of endangered harlequin frogs. Conservation Science and Practice, e70414.

Plewnia, A., Hildwein, T., Quezada Riera, A. B., Terán-Valdez, A., Crawford, A. J., Heine, C., … Páez-Vacas, M., … & Guayasamin, J. M. (2026). Environmental DNA metabarcoding facilitates integrative conservation assessments and species rediscoveries in tropical biodiversity hotspots. Scientific Reports, 16, 8150.

Vega-Yánez, M.A., Quezada-Riera, A.B., Rios-Touma, B., Vizcaíno-Barba, MdC., Millingalli, W., Ganzino, O., Coloma, L.A., Tapia, E.E., Dupérré, N., Páez-Vacas, M., Parra-Puente, D., Franco-Mena, D., Gavilanes, G., Salazar-Valenzuela, D., Valle, C.A., Guayasamin, J.M. (2024). Path for recovery: an ecological overview of the Jambato Harlequin Toad (Bufonidae: Atelopus ignescens) in its last known locality, Angamarca Valley, Ecuador. PeerJ 12:e17344.

Páez-Vacas, M. I., & Funk W. C. (2024). Thermal limits along tropical elevation gradients: poison frogs’ tadpoles show plasticity but maintain divergence across elevation. Journal of Thermal Biology, 103815.

Bertola, L. D., Brüniche‐Olsen, A., Kershaw, F., Russo, I. R. M., MacDonald, A. J., Sunnucks, P., … Páez-Vacas, M. I., …& Segelbacher, G. (2024). A pragmatic approach for integrating molecular tools into biodiversity conservation. Conservation Science and Practice, e13053.

Sánchez-Loja, S., Donoso, D. A., & Páez-Vacas, M. I. (2023). Conspicuous and cryptic poison frogs are picky and prefer different meals in syntopy. Evolutionary Ecology, 1-13.

Páez-Vacas, M., Bustamante, M. R., Baer, N., Oleas, N. H., Argoti, M. A., Espinoza, F. S., … & Salazar-Valenzuela, D. (2023). Citizen science as a tool for education: First Bioblitz in Quito, Ecuador. In IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science (Vol. 1141, No. 1, p. 012004). IOP Publishing.

Jaynes, K., Páez-Vacas, M., Salazar-Valenzuela, D., Guayasamin, J., Terán-Valdez, A., Siavichay, F., Fitzpatrick, S., Coloma, L.A. (2022) Harlequin frog rediscoveries provide insights into mechanisms of persistence in the face of drastic amphibian declines. Biological Conservation, 276:109784.

Páez-Vacas, M. I., Trumbo, D. R., & Funk, W. C. (2022). Contrasting environmental drivers of genetic and phenotypic divergence in an Andean poison frog (Epipedobates anthonyi). Heredity, 1-12.

Morales-Espín, B., Ortiz, F., Sánchez-Lara, E., Páez-Vacas, M., Muñoz-Lara, K., Bravo-Vera, E., … & Tobes, I. (2022). Understanding the Relation with Nature in the City: Biodiversity Knowledge and Environmental Awareness in a Periurban Area of Quito, Ecuador. In Congress in Sustainability, Energy and City (pp. 70-80). Springer, Cham.

Salerno, P.E., Páez-Vacas, M.I., Guayasamin, J.M., J.L. Stynoski. (2019) Male principal investigators (almost) don’t publish with women in ecology and zoology. PloS one, 14(6), e0218598.

Fitak, R. R., Antonides, J. D., Baitchman, E. J., Bonaccorso, E., Braun, J., Kubiski, S., Páez-Vacas, M. I., … & Malmberg, J. L. (2019). The expectations and challenges of wildlife disease research in the era of genomics: forecasting with a horizon scan-like exercise. Journal of Heredity, 110(3), 261-274.

Páez-Vacas, M. I., & Oleas, N. H. (2019). Isolation and characterization of 12 microsatellite loci in Epipedobates anthonyi (Amphibia: Anura: Dendrobatidae) for population genetic analysis. Molecular biology reports, 1-4.

Robertson, J. M., Murphy, M. A., Pearl, C. A., Adams, M. J., Páez-Vacas, M. I., Haig, S. M., … & Funk, W. C. (2018). Regional variation in drivers of connectivity for two frog species (Rana pretiosa and R. luteiventris) from the US Pacific Northwest. Molecular Ecology, 27(16), 3242-3256.