Through a serendipitous turn of events, I found myself a wonderful and caring host family for the last month in Costa Rica. I met the Paniagua family through Kim, the hilarious woman from University of Washington that I mentioned in earlier posts. She had been staying with them for a few weeks and suggested that I move in with them after she left for more adventures.
Let me explain the Paniaguas because they are quite an extraordinary family. The two parents are Cecelia and Francisco, or Kiko as everyone calls him, and they have raised eleven children. Yes, eleven. That is a lot. All of their sons and daughter are grown and all but a handful have kid-lets of their own. The oldest daughter even became a grandmother herself a few months ago.
Along with family members, Cecelia and Francisco have always welcomed people into their home. They have taken in neighbors that lost their homes, children who need a break from their own angry households, visiting relatives who need extra support, and (of course) foreigners, like me, looking for a family and some Spanish practice.
With such a large, busy family, there are always visiting children and in-laws and grandchildren chasing one another through the house. From what I can see, they all treat each other very lovingly and respectfully. Everyone helps out with dishes when they come over for dinner and watches out for all the running children. It is beautiful to see.
And they have welcomed me as a twelfth sibling. “You can come back to Costa Rica anytime you want because you have a large family with eleven other siblings here,” Margarita reminded me during my farewell dinner.
This has been a great decision for me. Although I enjoyed the luxuries of the field station, I missed feeling at home and cared for by a family. There is no internet and no fresh papaya, but the family gives me plenty of hugs, too much coffee, and as many corn tortillas as I can stuff myself with. This is a happy household and I am so happy to be a part of it.
8.17.2009
Berlese Funnels to Sweep-netting
In previous posts, I may have talked excitedly about Berlese funnels, a technique to extract little critters from the leaf litter layer. I had just finished constructing eighteen of these contraptions when I discovered two small obstacles. First, the funnels fish out very, very little critters. From the first sample that I tried, I only first one or two insects that did not look like specks with the naked eye. The rest were around 1 to 2 mm and I needed to look at with a microscope. Second, herbivorous insects don’t scuttle in the leaf litter. They stay in the vegetation where there is more food and fewer frogs and lizards who want to eat them. So I was really surveying the community of itsy-bitsy decomposers rather than large herbivores, even though my question asked about how the herbivore community varied with fragment size and interior vs. edge. Oops.
So I needed to back up and start over. After consulting with a wonderful entomologist visiting Las Cruces, I decided just to sweep and beat-net. Very simple. Take a net. Sweep through all the vegetation, 30 strokes for a 16 meter squared plot then beat the understory vegetation into the net. That should more or less give me an idea about the kind of critters crawling (and hopefully eating) around in the vegetation. Along with katydids and grasshoppers, I collected quite a few spiders. These predaceous critters could give me an even better picture about the arthropod community composition.
Within each plot, I also assessed the herbivory level on and identified to family all the woody seedlings in a 1 m by 2 m area. This data should tell me if herbivory damage varies with fragment size or proximity to edge and if different types of seedlings grow in fragments of different sizes or near vs. far from the edge.
I collected all the samples in one feverish before flying back to the States. Never, never again will I let myself believe that all will go according to plan and that I have plenty of time to do anything my little heart desires. Now it is time for data entry and arthropod identification when I return to Grinnell this fall.
So I needed to back up and start over. After consulting with a wonderful entomologist visiting Las Cruces, I decided just to sweep and beat-net. Very simple. Take a net. Sweep through all the vegetation, 30 strokes for a 16 meter squared plot then beat the understory vegetation into the net. That should more or less give me an idea about the kind of critters crawling (and hopefully eating) around in the vegetation. Along with katydids and grasshoppers, I collected quite a few spiders. These predaceous critters could give me an even better picture about the arthropod community composition.
Within each plot, I also assessed the herbivory level on and identified to family all the woody seedlings in a 1 m by 2 m area. This data should tell me if herbivory damage varies with fragment size or proximity to edge and if different types of seedlings grow in fragments of different sizes or near vs. far from the edge.
I collected all the samples in one feverish before flying back to the States. Never, never again will I let myself believe that all will go according to plan and that I have plenty of time to do anything my little heart desires. Now it is time for data entry and arthropod identification when I return to Grinnell this fall.
8.16.2009
Ultimate Frisbee for July 4th
For the fourth of July, Chris and I took a break and played some ultimate frisbee. The team that Ben and I picked up with in San Jose sponsor the “Volcanic Tournament” every year in La Fortuna and invite players from all over the world. The regular tournament fee is pretty pricey ($350) because it includes accommodations in a swanky resort, all meals, and a guided hike through the rainforest. Well, Chris and I have had plenty of hikes through the rainforest and we don’t mind camping conditions, so we opted to pay $20 to play and stay in a cheap, clean little hostel in town.
The players mostly came from Latin America (lots of Panamanians) and the States, but there was also one German player. And plenty of ex-pats living in Costa Rica. The tourney directors mixed up all the players onto different teams. This is called a hat tourney. It is great because you have a chance to meet people from different teams (and in this case different countries), but it can be challenging to learn to play smoothly with a new group of people in just two days.
My team’s captain was Jenny, a very fast, very aggressive (on the field!) Tica from the San Jose pick up team. She is lots of fun, but I am grateful that I didn’t have to guard her. We had plenty of Ticos, a few Panamanians, and some Texans, including one whose parents had immigrated from Mexico. He served as our Spanish-English translator. Communicating with one another could be a challenge. Although most players were bilingual, a few could speak only English or only Spanish. And the English translations seemed to be slightly different abbreviated versions. It was neat for me to understand both sides. Surprisingly, I kept up really well with all the Spanish conversation. A big improvement from when Ben and I played ultimate in San Jose. Hooray! The months in Costa Rica have been worthwhile!
All in all, our two days of ultimate were a wonderful and welcome break from fieldwork. It felt good to get my sprinting muscles moving again. And I enjoyed comparing notes with players from other countries.
Getting back to fieldwork was a bit of a shock. After running for two days, we had to sit on a bus for seven hours and then go right into the field to hike and check on the seeds. A very, very painful day of fieldwork—but well worth it.
The players mostly came from Latin America (lots of Panamanians) and the States, but there was also one German player. And plenty of ex-pats living in Costa Rica. The tourney directors mixed up all the players onto different teams. This is called a hat tourney. It is great because you have a chance to meet people from different teams (and in this case different countries), but it can be challenging to learn to play smoothly with a new group of people in just two days.
My team’s captain was Jenny, a very fast, very aggressive (on the field!) Tica from the San Jose pick up team. She is lots of fun, but I am grateful that I didn’t have to guard her. We had plenty of Ticos, a few Panamanians, and some Texans, including one whose parents had immigrated from Mexico. He served as our Spanish-English translator. Communicating with one another could be a challenge. Although most players were bilingual, a few could speak only English or only Spanish. And the English translations seemed to be slightly different abbreviated versions. It was neat for me to understand both sides. Surprisingly, I kept up really well with all the Spanish conversation. A big improvement from when Ben and I played ultimate in San Jose. Hooray! The months in Costa Rica have been worthwhile!
All in all, our two days of ultimate were a wonderful and welcome break from fieldwork. It felt good to get my sprinting muscles moving again. And I enjoyed comparing notes with players from other countries.
Getting back to fieldwork was a bit of a shock. After running for two days, we had to sit on a bus for seven hours and then go right into the field to hike and check on the seeds. A very, very painful day of fieldwork—but well worth it.
6.30.2009
Thirty Days to Go!
It is hard to believe that in one month I will be snuggled back at home in Pittsburgh, helping my mom in the garden and cooking veggies from the farmers market. And it is hard to believe that I have spent almost five months in the tropics. And it is a bit stressful to think about the lengthy To-Do List that Chris and I need to finish before I leave! So time has flown by since I got on the plane in snowy Pittsburgh last February with a sore belly from the appendectomy. The last bit of my Costa Rican adventures promise to be very busy and marvelous. I know this month will fly by, just like the last five have, so I will do myself to savor the pineapples, bromeliads, and toucan calls in the morning.
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Just returned from another stint up in Las Alturas. This time, Chris and I picked up an extra companion and field assistant. Kimberly stumbled into the community of Las Cruces researchers serendipitously when we ran into each other in town. Since then, she has been helping out on various projects and drinking coffee with us in the library. She ended up in San Vito with a wonderful host family after similarly serendipitous meetings while she was traveling through Costa Rica after her study abroad program finished up in May. Kim is fantastic to have around, partially from her research experience as an undergrad in the University of Washington's College of Forest Resources and partially because of her general hilarity. The three of us had a great time laughing while measuring seedlings or trying to cook pasta out in the woods. What a great trip!
The fieldwork focused on measuring seedlings in the various exclosure treatments. Chris wants to seed how the prescence or absence of different mammals--peccaries, agoutis, and small rodents--affects plant recruitment, or how much seedlings grow, how likely they will survive to maturity, and how many seeds are predated. The measurements that we are taking now will be the baseline for when Chris returns in the spring. He will be able to seed how much the seedlings have grown inside and outside of the exclosures and how many seedlings are missing inside and outside of the exclosures. And measuring seedlings is very tedious--and possibly painful when some barbed wire is thrown into the mix. Several more of our trips will be dedicated to measuring seedlings.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Just returned from another stint up in Las Alturas. This time, Chris and I picked up an extra companion and field assistant. Kimberly stumbled into the community of Las Cruces researchers serendipitously when we ran into each other in town. Since then, she has been helping out on various projects and drinking coffee with us in the library. She ended up in San Vito with a wonderful host family after similarly serendipitous meetings while she was traveling through Costa Rica after her study abroad program finished up in May. Kim is fantastic to have around, partially from her research experience as an undergrad in the University of Washington's College of Forest Resources and partially because of her general hilarity. The three of us had a great time laughing while measuring seedlings or trying to cook pasta out in the woods. What a great trip!
The fieldwork focused on measuring seedlings in the various exclosure treatments. Chris wants to seed how the prescence or absence of different mammals--peccaries, agoutis, and small rodents--affects plant recruitment, or how much seedlings grow, how likely they will survive to maturity, and how many seeds are predated. The measurements that we are taking now will be the baseline for when Chris returns in the spring. He will be able to seed how much the seedlings have grown inside and outside of the exclosures and how many seedlings are missing inside and outside of the exclosures. And measuring seedlings is very tedious--and possibly painful when some barbed wire is thrown into the mix. Several more of our trips will be dedicated to measuring seedlings.
6.23.2009
More Adventures
A quick up-date on fieldwork:
While Chris has been camping at Las Alturas, I have been having my own adventures while setting up plots for my study on how fragmentation affects insect communities and herbivory on seedlings. The basic design is for three blocks with three 2 meter by 1 meter plots at the edge and in the interior of each of the seven forest fragments. That means 18 plots and 72 flags for each fragment, 126 plots and 504 flags for the whole project. Ouch. Lots of wire and plastic. Sticking flags in the ground should be simple enough, but I--and probably every other field ecologist--always seem to run into problems: Uh, oh. My randomly selected point runs through a thick mass of thorny vines. Yuck. For the sake of randomization, I have to go through it anyway. Uh, oh. Less than ten seedlings fall into this plot. Have to shift the plot 10 meters over in a randomly selected direction. Setting up plots in the field always takes longer than setting them up on paper.
Yesterday, my sense of direction was the problem. I decided to take a short cut to the next plot through the forest rather than skirting the forest edge. Then the batteries in the GPS unit died. (Why do batteries seem to die so often this summer? First car batteries, now AA batteries.) So continuing to bushwack would have meant getting lost again--without peccaries for entertainment. So I followed the sound of the nearest river and hiked back along it. I soaked my boots and only finished two out of the three blocks I had planned to establish, but arrived safely back at the station without incident.
Today, I encountered problem #2 at Pina Colina, a beautiful, tiny fragment of primary forest next to Las Cruces. After sloughing through mud and dodging a barbed wire fence to finish one block, my glasses mysteriously spontaneously combusted. The frame broke and the lens fell out. Fortunately, both lens are intact, so I will just have to get new frames when I get back home. And I have a spare pair with me. Thank goodness! The walk back to Las Cruces was a little bit exciting, since all the landmarks that I usually use just looked like various green blobs. At least I was close to the station. We'll see if more adventures are in store tomorrow.
This afternoon we had our first Tuesday Afternoon Coffee Break, featuring strong Costa Rica café, cookies, and stories and jokes from Rodo, the busy Tico who manages the library and herbarium. It is great to hang out and chat with all the other researchers!
While Chris has been camping at Las Alturas, I have been having my own adventures while setting up plots for my study on how fragmentation affects insect communities and herbivory on seedlings. The basic design is for three blocks with three 2 meter by 1 meter plots at the edge and in the interior of each of the seven forest fragments. That means 18 plots and 72 flags for each fragment, 126 plots and 504 flags for the whole project. Ouch. Lots of wire and plastic. Sticking flags in the ground should be simple enough, but I--and probably every other field ecologist--always seem to run into problems: Uh, oh. My randomly selected point runs through a thick mass of thorny vines. Yuck. For the sake of randomization, I have to go through it anyway. Uh, oh. Less than ten seedlings fall into this plot. Have to shift the plot 10 meters over in a randomly selected direction. Setting up plots in the field always takes longer than setting them up on paper.
Yesterday, my sense of direction was the problem. I decided to take a short cut to the next plot through the forest rather than skirting the forest edge. Then the batteries in the GPS unit died. (Why do batteries seem to die so often this summer? First car batteries, now AA batteries.) So continuing to bushwack would have meant getting lost again--without peccaries for entertainment. So I followed the sound of the nearest river and hiked back along it. I soaked my boots and only finished two out of the three blocks I had planned to establish, but arrived safely back at the station without incident.
Today, I encountered problem #2 at Pina Colina, a beautiful, tiny fragment of primary forest next to Las Cruces. After sloughing through mud and dodging a barbed wire fence to finish one block, my glasses mysteriously spontaneously combusted. The frame broke and the lens fell out. Fortunately, both lens are intact, so I will just have to get new frames when I get back home. And I have a spare pair with me. Thank goodness! The walk back to Las Cruces was a little bit exciting, since all the landmarks that I usually use just looked like various green blobs. At least I was close to the station. We'll see if more adventures are in store tomorrow.This afternoon we had our first Tuesday Afternoon Coffee Break, featuring strong Costa Rica café, cookies, and stories and jokes from Rodo, the busy Tico who manages the library and herbarium. It is great to hang out and chat with all the other researchers!
6.18.2009
Peccaries, Snakes, and Seeds, Oh my!
The research project continues to move along. Martin and his work crew finished building the exclosure structures at Las Alturas a few days ago. As you can see in the pictures, these are serious pieces of construction with thick bamboo poles, metal sheeting, and barbed wire. Chris decided to make the Las Alturas structures very sturdy since peccaries (wild Costa Rican pigs) can trample and push their way through almost anything. Like the smaller exclosures that we just finished building at Las Cruces, these either exclude agoutis and allow mice or exclude mice and allow agoutis. All (hopefully) exclude peccaries. Selective exclosures are often used in ecological research because they allow us to measure the relative effect of whatever is excluded. So in this experiment, Chris is measuring the relative effect of peccaries, agoutis, and small rodents on herbivory of juvenile tree seedlings: do seedlings have higher or lower chances of survival depending on whether or not large mammals are present? how does this difference in survivorship influence what kind and how many seedlings mature into canopy trees?
At Las Alturas, we also collected boatloads and boatloads of fruits for another round of seed predation experiments. We owe our seed-success to a stroke of luck. An enormous branch dripping with had fallen right next to the trail. A type of Ocatea, a genus in the Lauraceae family. In the picture, there are the long green fruits with bright red caps. As you can probably tell, they are related to avocados. Then, a few feet down the trail, we found thousands of tiny green fruits in the leaf litter. So perfect! Chris and I both had worried that we would not be able to find enough fruits for more experiments.
And of course, our fieldwork left plenty of time for adventuring. At one point, I keep off to collect another kind of fruit near a stream while Chris worked on some of the seed predation structures at the camps. The trails are well-marked: machete cuts and flagging. I had no problems getting to the stream, but, on the way back to the road, I didn´t pay attention and somehow wandered far off the trail. After a few minutes of wandering back and forth, I had to admit that I was completely disoriented. No idea how to get back to the camp, or even in what direction it was. So I turned back, following the sound of running water to the stream. I must have ended up really far upstream from where I had started. No familiar landmarks. So I calmly pulled out my compass and walked north-west away from the river. The river runs parallel to the road that cuts through Las Alturas west-east. I figured that I just had to walk away from the river and I would meet up with the road eventually. And I did!
Along the way, I saw beautiful parts of the forest that I had never seen from the trails. I enjoyed the exhilaration of being alone in the forest with no bright blue flagging and cut palm stems to guide me. And--this is the highlight of my summer--I saw a herd of wild peccaries. The peccaries that I saw at the central green at La Selva looked like toy poodles compared to the herd that approached me. Their shoulders must have reached well above my knees and they were so wide and stocky that one could have easily knocked me over. There were at least ten adult peccaries that I could see on three sides of me. The hair on their backs stood on end. Clearly, they were not happy to see me--I was thrilled to see all of them. I stood for a few minutes watching the peccaries with a huge grin on my face. Seeing peccaries at Las Alturas had been my summer goal, and there I was, surrounded by a herd of peccaries!
Unhappy, aggressive peccaries. The kind of peccaries that chased Martin up a tree a few months ago and that can charge people if they feel especially grumpy. Uh, oh. I very slowly and calmly walked away in the one direction without peccaries. So all was well.
Back at Las Cruces now. Chris and I have been cleaning and counting seeds and putting them in the depots in the forest. I have been making more progress on my independent project. I have permission from landowners to work on their properties and a sampling scheme. So life continues to be wonderful and productive!
At Las Alturas, we also collected boatloads and boatloads of fruits for another round of seed predation experiments. We owe our seed-success to a stroke of luck. An enormous branch dripping with had fallen right next to the trail. A type of Ocatea, a genus in the Lauraceae family. In the picture, there are the long green fruits with bright red caps. As you can probably tell, they are related to avocados. Then, a few feet down the trail, we found thousands of tiny green fruits in the leaf litter. So perfect! Chris and I both had worried that we would not be able to find enough fruits for more experiments.
And of course, our fieldwork left plenty of time for adventuring. At one point, I keep off to collect another kind of fruit near a stream while Chris worked on some of the seed predation structures at the camps. The trails are well-marked: machete cuts and flagging. I had no problems getting to the stream, but, on the way back to the road, I didn´t pay attention and somehow wandered far off the trail. After a few minutes of wandering back and forth, I had to admit that I was completely disoriented. No idea how to get back to the camp, or even in what direction it was. So I turned back, following the sound of running water to the stream. I must have ended up really far upstream from where I had started. No familiar landmarks. So I calmly pulled out my compass and walked north-west away from the river. The river runs parallel to the road that cuts through Las Alturas west-east. I figured that I just had to walk away from the river and I would meet up with the road eventually. And I did!
Along the way, I saw beautiful parts of the forest that I had never seen from the trails. I enjoyed the exhilaration of being alone in the forest with no bright blue flagging and cut palm stems to guide me. And--this is the highlight of my summer--I saw a herd of wild peccaries. The peccaries that I saw at the central green at La Selva looked like toy poodles compared to the herd that approached me. Their shoulders must have reached well above my knees and they were so wide and stocky that one could have easily knocked me over. There were at least ten adult peccaries that I could see on three sides of me. The hair on their backs stood on end. Clearly, they were not happy to see me--I was thrilled to see all of them. I stood for a few minutes watching the peccaries with a huge grin on my face. Seeing peccaries at Las Alturas had been my summer goal, and there I was, surrounded by a herd of peccaries!
Unhappy, aggressive peccaries. The kind of peccaries that chased Martin up a tree a few months ago and that can charge people if they feel especially grumpy. Uh, oh. I very slowly and calmly walked away in the one direction without peccaries. So all was well.
Back at Las Cruces now. Chris and I have been cleaning and counting seeds and putting them in the depots in the forest. I have been making more progress on my independent project. I have permission from landowners to work on their properties and a sampling scheme. So life continues to be wonderful and productive!
6.09.2009
Fieldwork as Usual
No other camping excursions to pulperías to report. Just good, clean fieldwork fun. Chris and I spent the last several days setting up his seed predation experiment. He wants to understand how predation by different kinds of mammals contributes either to seed mortality. To do that, we set up miniature buffets in the forest that are accessible only to small mice and rats (mesh with holes too small for an agouti to wiggle through), accessible only to toy poodle-sized agoutis (a metal ring too high for mice to jump over), and accessible to all animals (no mesh, no metal ring).
For ¨bait,¨we gathered three different kinds of fruits out of the forest. My favorite part of the experiment. Gathering fruits is a cross between an Easter egg hunt and harvest party in the garden. Unlike Anna, Chris does not need to be picky about exactly which trees the seeds come from. Thank goodness. Tree-hunting puts a crick in my neck. Today, we set up a few more structures and checked on the seeds that we had already put on. I was really excited to find some seeds missing and others clearly damaged. We will continue to monitor the seeds' fates throughout the summer. I will keep you posted.
I have also settled on an independent project question(s): Does habitat fragmentation affect insect abundance and community composition? If so, can changes in the insect community explain changes in the amount of herbivory levels on juvenile trees with fragment size? This will give me a great opportunity to practice identifying insect and plant families and explore some other forests around Las Cruces. Very excited.
Tomorrow morning Chris and I are off to Las Alturas again. With underwear, frisbees, and toothpaste. This time we are camping out for three nights to check on the seedlings in the plots and scout around for more seed sources. I am so looking forward to camping! Since Martin needs the car, Chris and I will be taking a taxi. It is almost disappointing; I had a great time in the pulpería. We are stopping back by to visit the family before we trek off into the woods.
For ¨bait,¨we gathered three different kinds of fruits out of the forest. My favorite part of the experiment. Gathering fruits is a cross between an Easter egg hunt and harvest party in the garden. Unlike Anna, Chris does not need to be picky about exactly which trees the seeds come from. Thank goodness. Tree-hunting puts a crick in my neck. Today, we set up a few more structures and checked on the seeds that we had already put on. I was really excited to find some seeds missing and others clearly damaged. We will continue to monitor the seeds' fates throughout the summer. I will keep you posted.
I have also settled on an independent project question(s): Does habitat fragmentation affect insect abundance and community composition? If so, can changes in the insect community explain changes in the amount of herbivory levels on juvenile trees with fragment size? This will give me a great opportunity to practice identifying insect and plant families and explore some other forests around Las Cruces. Very excited.
Tomorrow morning Chris and I are off to Las Alturas again. With underwear, frisbees, and toothpaste. This time we are camping out for three nights to check on the seedlings in the plots and scout around for more seed sources. I am so looking forward to camping! Since Martin needs the car, Chris and I will be taking a taxi. It is almost disappointing; I had a great time in the pulpería. We are stopping back by to visit the family before we trek off into the woods.
6.04.2009
Camping in a Pulpareria
I spent last night sleeping on a mattress on the floor of a pulpareria, a Tico convenience store with everything from ball bearings to pasta sauce to pajamas. I hope that this first experience with fieldwork is just a taste of the rest of my summer with Chris Graham.
We had planned to take a day trip to Las Alturas, the continuous forest site connected to La Amistad International Park. Chris wanted to check on a few of the plots that he had set up last spring and his field assistants, Martin and Jose Pablo, started to build some of the exclosures, or 2 by 2 meter fences that keep out mammals of different sizes. We had a great hike into forest up through pastures set precariously on hillsides. I almost expected to see cows with short legs on one side and long on the other, just to help them keep their balance on the slopes. The forest is very similar to Las Cruces; it has the same kinds of trees, the same palms and cycads in the understory, the same thick vines wrapping around trunks. But it feels more wild. We follow machete cuts instead of clear, lined trails to reach the study plots. We hear only insects and birds, rather than the traffic noise that is ubiquitous at Las Cruces. It creates that wonderful feeling of being out in the middle of nowhere.
Martin and Jose Pablo had brought camping gear so that the could spent the night and finish working in the morning. Because Chris wanted to check up on this plots back at Las Cruces, we only stayed until 3 or so in the afternoon to get on the road before the rains hit and turned the dirt roads into red streams of muddy clay. Before we reached the edge of the forest, it started to pour. Chris and I were both soaked to the skin. In wet socks, we hiked back through the pastures and promptly disoriented ourselves. Pastures do not have reliable landmarks, just one kind of invasive grass. We eventually found our way back to the road and the two of us piled into the car.
Then it refused to start. Just sputtered and clicked a little bit when Chris turned the ignition. Now this car has a history of being uncooperative. Chris and Martin bought it dirt-cheap and it was dirt-cheap for a reason. The four-wheel drive fizzled out last month and, to keep the car in first gear, you have to really hold down the shifter (and hope. Sometimes it takes ten tries before it finally shifts into first gear). Along with all these problems, the battery or the alternator had apparently died. By this time, the sun had already started to set, so we walked up the hill to the closet town, Agua Caliente, by flashlight.
We found the local (and only) mechanic, Jose. His shop is attached to a pulpareria, the Tico version of a convenience store. The word literally means "store for fleshy things." They sell all the staples that you could possibly need, except for fresh vegetables and meat. Canned beans, dry beans, bread, nails & screws, school notebooks, kids pajamas, soda. Sandra, Joses wife, takes care of the pulpareria while he takes care of the mechanic shop. Their places seems to be very busy with people stopping in to buy bread and milk before dinner and others on cars and motorcycles stopping to ask about repairs.
Jose agreed to drive back down to our car in this patchwork Jeep. He and his two chain-smoking assistants replaced the battery. That gave us enough juice to climb up the hill to his shop. He warned us that, because headlights drain so much energy, we would probably stall out if we tried to drive back that night. So his family dragged a mattress and extra blankets into a spare room in the pulpareria. (It is not everyday that I get to share a mattress with my research advisor on the floor of a pulperaria in a remote town in the Costa Rican highlands. This definitely goes on my list of firsts.)
After eating a can of refried beans and bread from the pulpareria, we watched the Costa Rica vs Estados Unidos soccer game with Jose, Sandra, and their two young daughters. Costa Rica won (obviously). Spending time with this family reminded me of the Quesadas. All the family members are very loving and respectful towards each other. It is a happy family; that is always nice to see.
The next day Chris and I sat on front porch of the pulpareria, waiting expectantly as Jose and the chain-smoking assistants inspected all the machinary under the hood. Since we had not planned on spending the night, neither of us brought extra socks, toothbrush, or any type of entertainment. So we spent that morning being very, very grimy, probably stinky, and slightly damp from our hike through the pastures the day before. We sat and waited, chatted, sat and waited some more, ate tuna fish and bread for lunch, sat and waited again, and discussed the necessities that we would put in our emergency box in case of another fizzled out battery. A disc and underwear were at the top of the list.
By the afternoon, Jose had successfully fixed our battery problems and also the four-wheel drive. Other mechanics near San Vito had told Martin that the four-wheel drive was irreparable. Clearly, Jose has a magic touch with cars as well as a loving, generous family. Back on the road again, Chris and I picked up Martin and Jose Pablo after they finished their work in Las Alturas forest and headed back to Las Cruces. Neither Chris nor I had the numbers for anyone we knew at Las Cruces. Chris luckily remembered the number for the main office, so we had called and left a rather disjointed message. Apparently, no one from the office had told our researcher-friends that we were safe and sound at a pulpareria in Aguas Calientes. By this time, we were exactly 24 hours late and had missed two meals. So when we finally stumbled into dinner, grimy and late, Anna, Melissa, and Emily all screeched a bit and told us that they thought that we had perished in the forest or gotten caught in the cross-fire of drug-trafficking or been captured by poachers hunting peccaries and researchers.
Now all is well. I have eaten a good, hot meal that did not include any canned food. I have showered. I have washed out all my dirty clothes and stuffed newspaper in my boots to dry them. I will sleep in my own bed with all the covers to myself. And tomorrow is another day of fieldwork!
We had planned to take a day trip to Las Alturas, the continuous forest site connected to La Amistad International Park. Chris wanted to check on a few of the plots that he had set up last spring and his field assistants, Martin and Jose Pablo, started to build some of the exclosures, or 2 by 2 meter fences that keep out mammals of different sizes. We had a great hike into forest up through pastures set precariously on hillsides. I almost expected to see cows with short legs on one side and long on the other, just to help them keep their balance on the slopes. The forest is very similar to Las Cruces; it has the same kinds of trees, the same palms and cycads in the understory, the same thick vines wrapping around trunks. But it feels more wild. We follow machete cuts instead of clear, lined trails to reach the study plots. We hear only insects and birds, rather than the traffic noise that is ubiquitous at Las Cruces. It creates that wonderful feeling of being out in the middle of nowhere.
Martin and Jose Pablo had brought camping gear so that the could spent the night and finish working in the morning. Because Chris wanted to check up on this plots back at Las Cruces, we only stayed until 3 or so in the afternoon to get on the road before the rains hit and turned the dirt roads into red streams of muddy clay. Before we reached the edge of the forest, it started to pour. Chris and I were both soaked to the skin. In wet socks, we hiked back through the pastures and promptly disoriented ourselves. Pastures do not have reliable landmarks, just one kind of invasive grass. We eventually found our way back to the road and the two of us piled into the car.
Then it refused to start. Just sputtered and clicked a little bit when Chris turned the ignition. Now this car has a history of being uncooperative. Chris and Martin bought it dirt-cheap and it was dirt-cheap for a reason. The four-wheel drive fizzled out last month and, to keep the car in first gear, you have to really hold down the shifter (and hope. Sometimes it takes ten tries before it finally shifts into first gear). Along with all these problems, the battery or the alternator had apparently died. By this time, the sun had already started to set, so we walked up the hill to the closet town, Agua Caliente, by flashlight.
We found the local (and only) mechanic, Jose. His shop is attached to a pulpareria, the Tico version of a convenience store. The word literally means "store for fleshy things." They sell all the staples that you could possibly need, except for fresh vegetables and meat. Canned beans, dry beans, bread, nails & screws, school notebooks, kids pajamas, soda. Sandra, Joses wife, takes care of the pulpareria while he takes care of the mechanic shop. Their places seems to be very busy with people stopping in to buy bread and milk before dinner and others on cars and motorcycles stopping to ask about repairs.
Jose agreed to drive back down to our car in this patchwork Jeep. He and his two chain-smoking assistants replaced the battery. That gave us enough juice to climb up the hill to his shop. He warned us that, because headlights drain so much energy, we would probably stall out if we tried to drive back that night. So his family dragged a mattress and extra blankets into a spare room in the pulpareria. (It is not everyday that I get to share a mattress with my research advisor on the floor of a pulperaria in a remote town in the Costa Rican highlands. This definitely goes on my list of firsts.)
After eating a can of refried beans and bread from the pulpareria, we watched the Costa Rica vs Estados Unidos soccer game with Jose, Sandra, and their two young daughters. Costa Rica won (obviously). Spending time with this family reminded me of the Quesadas. All the family members are very loving and respectful towards each other. It is a happy family; that is always nice to see.
The next day Chris and I sat on front porch of the pulpareria, waiting expectantly as Jose and the chain-smoking assistants inspected all the machinary under the hood. Since we had not planned on spending the night, neither of us brought extra socks, toothbrush, or any type of entertainment. So we spent that morning being very, very grimy, probably stinky, and slightly damp from our hike through the pastures the day before. We sat and waited, chatted, sat and waited some more, ate tuna fish and bread for lunch, sat and waited again, and discussed the necessities that we would put in our emergency box in case of another fizzled out battery. A disc and underwear were at the top of the list.
By the afternoon, Jose had successfully fixed our battery problems and also the four-wheel drive. Other mechanics near San Vito had told Martin that the four-wheel drive was irreparable. Clearly, Jose has a magic touch with cars as well as a loving, generous family. Back on the road again, Chris and I picked up Martin and Jose Pablo after they finished their work in Las Alturas forest and headed back to Las Cruces. Neither Chris nor I had the numbers for anyone we knew at Las Cruces. Chris luckily remembered the number for the main office, so we had called and left a rather disjointed message. Apparently, no one from the office had told our researcher-friends that we were safe and sound at a pulpareria in Aguas Calientes. By this time, we were exactly 24 hours late and had missed two meals. So when we finally stumbled into dinner, grimy and late, Anna, Melissa, and Emily all screeched a bit and told us that they thought that we had perished in the forest or gotten caught in the cross-fire of drug-trafficking or been captured by poachers hunting peccaries and researchers.
Now all is well. I have eaten a good, hot meal that did not include any canned food. I have showered. I have washed out all my dirty clothes and stuffed newspaper in my boots to dry them. I will sleep in my own bed with all the covers to myself. And tomorrow is another day of fieldwork!
6.02.2009
El Chris Ha Llegado! Hooray!
Chris Graham, the UGA grad student with whom I will be working, finally arrived today! Hooray! He was supposed to arrive two days ago but spent a few extra days in San Jose unexpectedly to buy camping supplies. I know that I will be grateful when we are camping out at Las Alturas. We chatted a little bit after lunch about his project and my independent project and then went out to the hardware store for supplies for his exclosure experiments. Tomorrow morning Martin, Chris' other field assistant from San Vito, is taking us to the site at Las Alturas.
Las Alturas is connected to La Amistad, the large reserve that spans Costa Rica and Panama. It is large enough to protect tapirs and peccaries, large mammals that graze on seedlings and chew up seeds. This is the ¨control¨site; it will give us a picture of what seed predation, seedling herbivory, and seedling survival were like in the rainforests before fragmentation. The area is supposed to feel very wild. A strong contrast to Las Cruces: on most of the trails, I could hear cars on the nearby roads. I am looking forward to the experience. Later on in the summer, Chris, Martin, and I will be camping out there for a few days at a time. Great fun!
Las Alturas is connected to La Amistad, the large reserve that spans Costa Rica and Panama. It is large enough to protect tapirs and peccaries, large mammals that graze on seedlings and chew up seeds. This is the ¨control¨site; it will give us a picture of what seed predation, seedling herbivory, and seedling survival were like in the rainforests before fragmentation. The area is supposed to feel very wild. A strong contrast to Las Cruces: on most of the trails, I could hear cars on the nearby roads. I am looking forward to the experience. Later on in the summer, Chris, Martin, and I will be camping out there for a few days at a time. Great fun!
5.30.2009
Snake #4
This time, the snake was small with black and red rings. And I had Anna with me, so I was brave enough to poke it with a very long stick. Anna and I think that the snake may of been shedding its skin; on the end where its head should have been, there was just grey tissue. So I suppose that we were extra-safe: a snake with a covered head can't bite, right?
I spent the morning helping Anna find tree. I know, I know, that sounds a little silly. Finding trees in a rainforest, how hard can that be? Well, Anna needs to find the particular trees that are producing the fruits that she finds on the ground. With canopies 30 or 40 feet high and a lot of other leaves in the way, it can be a bit tricky. For a few of the species, we don´t have a great search image for the leaf; so we have to hope that some fruits still remain on the tree and that we can see those fruits. Even if she knew the characteristics of the tree species, it is really, really difficult to distinguish leaf shape and arrangement the leaves. We craned and stretched our necks.
Working with Anna has taught me that research projects with fruits are slow and tedious and uncertain. You have to desperately hope that, when you arrive, enough tree specifics are producing enough fruits for your study, figure out what is fruiting during your field season, then find the trees that the fruits fell from, then make sure than there is no overlap between trees, and then desperately hope that whatever is fruiting this field season will also fruit next field season. Anna's work will be very interesting and exciting when she finally gets all the data collection. However, I would not want to focus on fruits for my dissertation. Too tricky. Too much neck-craning.
Tomorrow morning, I will be helping Anna in the field again--she is a lot of fun to work with!--and waiting for Chris to arrive. Then my summer will really get going. He can explain all the details of his project and field methods to me (it apparently changed a bit since the proposal he gave me last March) and we can figure out how can insect herbivory study can fit in. So I am looking forward to the next week.
And Melissa, my new room-mate and Emily's field assistant, just arrived this afternoon. It will be nice to have someone else in the little cabina.
I spent the morning helping Anna find tree. I know, I know, that sounds a little silly. Finding trees in a rainforest, how hard can that be? Well, Anna needs to find the particular trees that are producing the fruits that she finds on the ground. With canopies 30 or 40 feet high and a lot of other leaves in the way, it can be a bit tricky. For a few of the species, we don´t have a great search image for the leaf; so we have to hope that some fruits still remain on the tree and that we can see those fruits. Even if she knew the characteristics of the tree species, it is really, really difficult to distinguish leaf shape and arrangement the leaves. We craned and stretched our necks.
Working with Anna has taught me that research projects with fruits are slow and tedious and uncertain. You have to desperately hope that, when you arrive, enough tree specifics are producing enough fruits for your study, figure out what is fruiting during your field season, then find the trees that the fruits fell from, then make sure than there is no overlap between trees, and then desperately hope that whatever is fruiting this field season will also fruit next field season. Anna's work will be very interesting and exciting when she finally gets all the data collection. However, I would not want to focus on fruits for my dissertation. Too tricky. Too much neck-craning.
Tomorrow morning, I will be helping Anna in the field again--she is a lot of fun to work with!--and waiting for Chris to arrive. Then my summer will really get going. He can explain all the details of his project and field methods to me (it apparently changed a bit since the proposal he gave me last March) and we can figure out how can insect herbivory study can fit in. So I am looking forward to the next week.
And Melissa, my new room-mate and Emily's field assistant, just arrived this afternoon. It will be nice to have someone else in the little cabina.
5.25.2009
Another use for Dr. Bronner´s Amazing Soap!
Pit-fall traps! Today I set up a few pitfall traps, just to test them out in a few different parts of Las Cruces. This is one of those kindergartner-style field techniques: Dig a hole. Put a container in it so that the lip of the container is level with the ground. Add water and some detergent. (Lacking any other detergent, I added Dr. Bronner´s Special Soap.) Balance some sort of cover over the container to keep out leaves. Check back in a few days.
You should find insects that were crawling in the leaf-litter--minding their own business--and happened to fall into the container. The detergent breaks the surface tension of the water so that the poor little critters don't have a chance to save themselves. It's a bit cruel, but its a really easy and efficient way to sample ground-dwelling insects. I've been wanting to try this out since other students used pitfall traps in a project for Vince Eckhart's ecology class. Unfortunately, they ended up catching a baby mole along with the insects. Hopefully that won't happen to me. With my luck, it would probably be a snake.
Over the next few days, I will be hiking the trails and recording the locations of especially abundant fruits and continuing to develop my research project.
You should find insects that were crawling in the leaf-litter--minding their own business--and happened to fall into the container. The detergent breaks the surface tension of the water so that the poor little critters don't have a chance to save themselves. It's a bit cruel, but its a really easy and efficient way to sample ground-dwelling insects. I've been wanting to try this out since other students used pitfall traps in a project for Vince Eckhart's ecology class. Unfortunately, they ended up catching a baby mole along with the insects. Hopefully that won't happen to me. With my luck, it would probably be a snake.
Over the next few days, I will be hiking the trails and recording the locations of especially abundant fruits and continuing to develop my research project.
5.24.2009
This morning, I felt like I was on a wildlife safari rather than a routine hike to do a little fieldwork. I saw so many beautiful animals: a pair of currosaws flapping noisily and calling to one another for over ten minutes, a velvet ant (at least what I think is a velvet ant) over two centimeters long, and a large frog (okay around four or five centimeters, but that is really big compared to the itty-bitty rain frogs and poison dart frogs that we say at other stations). And these wildlife sighting make fieldwork so much fun!
But the big highlight of my day was (drumroll please...) THREE SNAKES! Looking back, I know that seeing three snakes in four hours really is something special. In almost four months in Costa Rica, I have only seen maybe five snakes, most memorably the two hog-nosed pitvipers that Ben, Forest, and I found while shifting through leaf litter at La Selva. And Las Cruces is not supposed to have many snakes. And snakes are supposed to be off the trail. But all these three snakes were very much squarely in the trail. I practically walked on them before realizing that that branch-like thing in the trail actually had scales and eyes.
Now I do like snakes. Really. It just totally unnerves me to almost step on a snake in a country that boosts a fair number of venomous snakes. Two of the snakes were some of the longest fattest snakes I have every seen. The one pictured was well over a meter long. Unforunately, I didn't have a meter stick with me to toss along the snake to confirm it, but it was really big. And the last snake was a bit shorter, but incredibly fat and its scale pattern reminded me enough of the fer-de-lance and hog-nosed pitviper to race by (on the very far opposite site of the trail) without pausing for a picture. Realistically, I don´t think that it could have been either of those species; I think that their ranges are restricted to the highlands. At any rate it was fat and I didn´t want to mess with it. So it has been a snake-y day. I am grateful that I have gotten to see so much of Costa Rica´s herpefauna in a few hours--but next time I would appreciate a little fair warning. If the snakes could hold up bright neon signs, that would be great.
But the big highlight of my day was (drumroll please...) THREE SNAKES! Looking back, I know that seeing three snakes in four hours really is something special. In almost four months in Costa Rica, I have only seen maybe five snakes, most memorably the two hog-nosed pitvipers that Ben, Forest, and I found while shifting through leaf litter at La Selva. And Las Cruces is not supposed to have many snakes. And snakes are supposed to be off the trail. But all these three snakes were very much squarely in the trail. I practically walked on them before realizing that that branch-like thing in the trail actually had scales and eyes.
Now I do like snakes. Really. It just totally unnerves me to almost step on a snake in a country that boosts a fair number of venomous snakes. Two of the snakes were some of the longest fattest snakes I have every seen. The one pictured was well over a meter long. Unforunately, I didn't have a meter stick with me to toss along the snake to confirm it, but it was really big. And the last snake was a bit shorter, but incredibly fat and its scale pattern reminded me enough of the fer-de-lance and hog-nosed pitviper to race by (on the very far opposite site of the trail) without pausing for a picture. Realistically, I don´t think that it could have been either of those species; I think that their ranges are restricted to the highlands. At any rate it was fat and I didn´t want to mess with it. So it has been a snake-y day. I am grateful that I have gotten to see so much of Costa Rica´s herpefauna in a few hours--but next time I would appreciate a little fair warning. If the snakes could hold up bright neon signs, that would be great.
5.23.2009
Another day in the office...
My day began a little late as I rolled out of bed after 7 and scrambled up to the comedor to get some gallo pinto before the kitchen ladies packed it away. Now I have learned that I can´t trust the toucans to wake me up bright and early. After that, I hit the forest trail to play around with some methods for my independent project. Chris´work focus on how the local extinction of large mammals affects herbivory rates on seedlings and seed predation. So what he is asking is: What happens to the next generation of trees (the seeds and seedlings) if we take out big mammals that usually disperse seeds, trample and eat seedlings, and prey on seeds? To complement that, I want to look at how the local extinction of large mammals affects the composition of the insect community and how much that insect community eats seeds and seedlings. This will give us a more complete picture of herbivory, seed predation, and the community of the plants´enemies at Las Cruces and La Amistad, the large continuous forest which protects large mammals like tapirs and peccaries.
To do that, I am going to sweepnet the seedlings understory in randomly distributed plots. That just means passes a mesh net over all the seedlings. Any insects on the leaves get trapped in the net, so that I can conveniently collect them in a plastic bag and identify them back in the lab. (Sweepnetting makes me feel like a little kid running through a meadow catching butterflies; it is so much fun.) Emily, the PhD researcher from University of Michigan, suggested that I use pit-fall traps to survey the critters crawling in the litter layer.
For herbivory, I began by doing a guessimate of how many of the leaves in the plot had been nibbled on. This is a very rough totally unreliable guessimate, but I thought that it was impressive that over three-quarters of the leaves had at least some herbivory damage. Life is tough for little seedlings; would it be awful to grow up and know that, most likely, 75% of your limbs would be munched on? All in all, I am feeling more hopeful than overwhelmed about the project right now. We will see what Chris says when he arrives next week.
To do that, I am going to sweepnet the seedlings understory in randomly distributed plots. That just means passes a mesh net over all the seedlings. Any insects on the leaves get trapped in the net, so that I can conveniently collect them in a plastic bag and identify them back in the lab. (Sweepnetting makes me feel like a little kid running through a meadow catching butterflies; it is so much fun.) Emily, the PhD researcher from University of Michigan, suggested that I use pit-fall traps to survey the critters crawling in the litter layer.
For herbivory, I began by doing a guessimate of how many of the leaves in the plot had been nibbled on. This is a very rough totally unreliable guessimate, but I thought that it was impressive that over three-quarters of the leaves had at least some herbivory damage. Life is tough for little seedlings; would it be awful to grow up and know that, most likely, 75% of your limbs would be munched on? All in all, I am feeling more hopeful than overwhelmed about the project right now. We will see what Chris says when he arrives next week.
5.22.2009
Summertime at Las Cruces
Just arrived at the biological station where I will be spending the summer. Since this was the first field station that I visited during the OTS semester, it feels a little like coming home. The forest is beautiful, the food is delicious (a nice change from the La Selva kitchen), and the bungalow where I am staying is absolutely charming. So it will be a great summer.
This morning, I hiked most of the trails with Anna, another PhD candidate who works with the same adviser as Chris. We looked for fallen fruits to see what is available this time of year and checked out the 2 hectare study plot. That was a great introduction to the forest. Over the next few days I will be doing some chores for Chris, tagging along with other researchers to see their projects, and brainstorming ideas for my own.
This morning, I hiked most of the trails with Anna, another PhD candidate who works with the same adviser as Chris. We looked for fallen fruits to see what is available this time of year and checked out the 2 hectare study plot. That was a great introduction to the forest. Over the next few days I will be doing some chores for Chris, tagging along with other researchers to see their projects, and brainstorming ideas for my own.
5.21.2009
La Familia Quesada: Que Amable
For a few days in San Jose, the Quesada family took me in as one of their own. We went up to Volcan Irazu and Cartago for a paseo, or a day out. The volcano quieted down long ago and now there is a beautiful, bright blue turquoise colored lake in the crater. The vegetation is similar to the low, growing scrubby stuff that I saw on the paramo. The day was especially cloud, so we missed the supposedly beautiful view of the valley below. Even so, there is something wonderful and mysterious about wandering around in the clouds.
On our way down from the volcano, we stopped in Cartago, the old capital of Costa Rica, to see the Basilica de los Angeles. The church was built, oh I forget when exactly, but a long time ago to honor a vision of the Black Virgin. As the story goes, an indigenous women found a little figure of the Virgin craved in black stone when she was gathering wood. She took it home and put it in a box. The next morning the Virgin had (apparently) slipped out of the box and run back to the place where she was found. This happened a few more times to the women and then a few more time to a priest. So it was declared a miracle and the church was built. Now, people go there to gather holy water and also leave remembrances to thank the Virgin for miracles, like curing a sickness.
Overall, I just had a wonderful time being surrounded by Quesadas. They are a very loving and supportive family: lots of hugs, lots of conversations, lots of laughs. It gave me the warm and fuzzies. It was like a little dose of my mom´s hugs and chicken soup before I embark on another adventure.
On our way down from the volcano, we stopped in Cartago, the old capital of Costa Rica, to see the Basilica de los Angeles. The church was built, oh I forget when exactly, but a long time ago to honor a vision of the Black Virgin. As the story goes, an indigenous women found a little figure of the Virgin craved in black stone when she was gathering wood. She took it home and put it in a box. The next morning the Virgin had (apparently) slipped out of the box and run back to the place where she was found. This happened a few more times to the women and then a few more time to a priest. So it was declared a miracle and the church was built. Now, people go there to gather holy water and also leave remembrances to thank the Virgin for miracles, like curing a sickness.
Overall, I just had a wonderful time being surrounded by Quesadas. They are a very loving and supportive family: lots of hugs, lots of conversations, lots of laughs. It gave me the warm and fuzzies. It was like a little dose of my mom´s hugs and chicken soup before I embark on another adventure.
5.17.2009
Back from Nicuragua!
With three OTS students, I traveled to Ometempe Island in Lake Nicuragua for a few days, partly for the adventure and partly to renew my Costa Rica tourist visa. The island is absolutely beautiful--very rural with cows, pigs, and roosters strolling in the dirt roads, dry forest that explodes with bouquets of brilliant flowers on empty branches this time of year, two towering ancient volcanoes, and the sound of howler monkeys in the morning.
The first day, Gabe, Allen, and I climbed Volcan Maderas, a 1600ish meter volcano with cloud forest and a crater lake at the top. Since this is the dry season, the cloud forest was not especially cloudy, but it did still have branches dripping with mosses and the short, twisted trees. It reminds me of a fairy tale. These high elevation forests and the paramo, the high elevation shrubby prairie-like habitat, are my favorite ecosystems in Costa Rica. So I always enjoy hiking through them.
The next day, Gabe and I rented bicycles to bike 11 kilometers to San Ramon, a small dusty town on the other side of the island, and hike to a waterfall. To visit the waterfall, you can either pay $3 to go on a well-marked path owned by a ritzy hotel or you can pay $1 to walk on the community trail. They recommend that you hire a guide for the community trail because it is not well marked. Guess what we did--choose the community trail and decided to tough it without the guide. Yep. I think that we were fairly lost for the first hour or so. Gabe doesn´t. At any rate, we hiked in mostly the wrong direction for a while until we stumbled across a few men clear-cutting the area who told us to follow the dry creek bed to the waterfall. And then, after a long, hot hike with not quite enough water or lunch fixings, we reached the waterfall. It was absolutely gorgeous. No Niagara Falls, but an imposing mossy covered cliff face with a stream of water that fell to a shallow pool that we could wade in. So the hike was definitely worth it.
Allan and Kaori left one day early to meet family in San Jose and catch a flight to Quito, respectively. Then yesterday, Gabe and I got up bright and early at 4 am to make our way back to Costa Rica. We rolled back into San Jose at 11:00 last night after 8 hours on the TicaBus, 1 hour on a ferry, and 2 hours on the local Ometempe bus. So we had a long travel day.
For the next few days, I am staying at Andrés´ house in the San Pedro area before I embark on other adventures.
The first day, Gabe, Allen, and I climbed Volcan Maderas, a 1600ish meter volcano with cloud forest and a crater lake at the top. Since this is the dry season, the cloud forest was not especially cloudy, but it did still have branches dripping with mosses and the short, twisted trees. It reminds me of a fairy tale. These high elevation forests and the paramo, the high elevation shrubby prairie-like habitat, are my favorite ecosystems in Costa Rica. So I always enjoy hiking through them.
The next day, Gabe and I rented bicycles to bike 11 kilometers to San Ramon, a small dusty town on the other side of the island, and hike to a waterfall. To visit the waterfall, you can either pay $3 to go on a well-marked path owned by a ritzy hotel or you can pay $1 to walk on the community trail. They recommend that you hire a guide for the community trail because it is not well marked. Guess what we did--choose the community trail and decided to tough it without the guide. Yep. I think that we were fairly lost for the first hour or so. Gabe doesn´t. At any rate, we hiked in mostly the wrong direction for a while until we stumbled across a few men clear-cutting the area who told us to follow the dry creek bed to the waterfall. And then, after a long, hot hike with not quite enough water or lunch fixings, we reached the waterfall. It was absolutely gorgeous. No Niagara Falls, but an imposing mossy covered cliff face with a stream of water that fell to a shallow pool that we could wade in. So the hike was definitely worth it.
Allan and Kaori left one day early to meet family in San Jose and catch a flight to Quito, respectively. Then yesterday, Gabe and I got up bright and early at 4 am to make our way back to Costa Rica. We rolled back into San Jose at 11:00 last night after 8 hours on the TicaBus, 1 hour on a ferry, and 2 hours on the local Ometempe bus. So we had a long travel day.
For the next few days, I am staying at Andrés´ house in the San Pedro area before I embark on other adventures.
5.12.2009
Errands in San Jose & Future Adventures
A DAY IN THE CITY: San Jose traffic--with all its honking horns and black exhaust--is certainly a change from the rainforest. It can get exhausting to hear cars, look at concrete, and dodge through crowds constantly. I would rather have ten hog-nosed pit vipers in my study plot than be caught standing in the middle of a San Jose traffic jam. So the city can be an overwhelming experience, but at the same time, I`ve learned to appreciate its gritty rhythum. And the people (despite everything you will hear about josefinos) are generally a nice crowd. The merchants that I talk to have always been patient with my Spanish. So that is fun.
I spent the day running errands: food for my bus trip tomorrow, knitting needles and yarn and books for all my bus trips in the next week or so, a hat to replace the one that is somewhere on the Osa Peninsula (see, Mama, I am preparing for the tropical sun in Nicuragua!), and shorts to replace my favorite chili pepper frisbee short that are in La Selva.
Tomorrow morning, I am taking a bus to Nicuragua to stay at Finca Magdelena for a few days. The hostel is on a working organic farm at the base of a volcano on an island in the middle of Lake Nicuragua. My friends who went there for spring break have said that it is really beautiful. It will be a great time to relax, read, and hike, but the real motive for going to Nicuragua is to re-new my tourist visa for another 90 days. The rule is that foriegners can only stay in Costa Rica for 90 days at a stretch and in between they have to leave the country for 72 hours.
After Nicuragua, I am planning on coming back to San Jose to stay with one of my Tico friends. Along with the other Ticos and one other US student who is staying in Costa Rica a week late, we will hike Volcano Barva in a large national park a few hours from San Jose. Ben had hiked this volcano when he had comed to Costa Rica earlier (and I was in the hospital without an appendix); he warned us to prepare for very very wet weather.
Then I am going to take a bus to Orosi with Fabi and stay at the guesthouse of a small national park ranger station. It is in the mountains near Cerro de la Muerte, almost on top of the Talamanca Mountain range that runs alone the spine of the country. That means that the moist, montane forest vegetation will be beautiful with lots of mossy and that there will be far fewer bugs to nibble on my ankles. Finally, I will end up in Las Cruces for my field assistantship with Chris Graham. So it promises to be a wonderful summer!
I spent the day running errands: food for my bus trip tomorrow, knitting needles and yarn and books for all my bus trips in the next week or so, a hat to replace the one that is somewhere on the Osa Peninsula (see, Mama, I am preparing for the tropical sun in Nicuragua!), and shorts to replace my favorite chili pepper frisbee short that are in La Selva.
Tomorrow morning, I am taking a bus to Nicuragua to stay at Finca Magdelena for a few days. The hostel is on a working organic farm at the base of a volcano on an island in the middle of Lake Nicuragua. My friends who went there for spring break have said that it is really beautiful. It will be a great time to relax, read, and hike, but the real motive for going to Nicuragua is to re-new my tourist visa for another 90 days. The rule is that foriegners can only stay in Costa Rica for 90 days at a stretch and in between they have to leave the country for 72 hours.
After Nicuragua, I am planning on coming back to San Jose to stay with one of my Tico friends. Along with the other Ticos and one other US student who is staying in Costa Rica a week late, we will hike Volcano Barva in a large national park a few hours from San Jose. Ben had hiked this volcano when he had comed to Costa Rica earlier (and I was in the hospital without an appendix); he warned us to prepare for very very wet weather.
Then I am going to take a bus to Orosi with Fabi and stay at the guesthouse of a small national park ranger station. It is in the mountains near Cerro de la Muerte, almost on top of the Talamanca Mountain range that runs alone the spine of the country. That means that the moist, montane forest vegetation will be beautiful with lots of mossy and that there will be far fewer bugs to nibble on my ankles. Finally, I will end up in Las Cruces for my field assistantship with Chris Graham. So it promises to be a wonderful summer!
End of the Semester
So all the students are heading back home today. It has been a little sad saying goodbye to the friends that I have made this semester, but I know that we all have exciting lives to look forward to. I will likely cross pathes with that other ecologists.
I throughly enjoyed my time in La Selva. There is a beautiful variety of old growth and secondary forests, lots of snakes and frogs, and howler monkeys. Definitely recommend La Selva to anyone traveling to Costa Rica.
After La Selva, we spent two nights at Rincon de la Vieja, a sort of active volcano in northern Costa Rica. When hiking up the volcano, the elevation changes from 600 to 1900 meters. And I know that different plants grow at different elevations, but seeing the change happen during a 3 hour hike was incredible. We started in a dryish forest that looks a lot like a temperate forest in Arkansas at the begining of spring. Then palms gradually filled up the forest. Then, really suddenly, forest canopy dropped and instead of the diversity you normally see in tropical forest, there were only two or three tree species. Then we reached the top of a ridge that only supported shrubs with thick leathery leaves and small plants. At the very top of the volcano, almost to the crater, it was unbelieveably windy and rainy. So windy that I felt like I would topple over and so rainy that I could barely see 10 meters in front of me. And (yeah, it gets better) all the rain stung with sulfer from the volcano. It was a very dramatic ascent and absolutlely worthwhile.
4.27.2009
La Selva...Monkeys! and Snakes! and Frogs! Oh My!
The name of this biological field station is literally "the jungle." And this is certainly the most jungle-y place that we have been in Costa Rica. It is a wet lowland forest, so even during the dry season, it rains every week or so. This makes the whole place very green and lush. There are bromeliads decorating all the trees, just like at Las Cruces, and understory palms with enormous leaves bigger than I am. Because of its large size and location, the reserve is home to huge diversity of wild-life. I see more than five bright red poison dart frogs on a casual walk in the woods--and they look exactly like those plastic figurines in museum shops only a little bit smaller. On a night walk, our visiting herpetology professor spotted a golden eyelash viper curled up on a palm frond. Its gets its name from the eyelash-like scales that extend over its eyes. Pretty neat looking. 
And howler monkeys cross with suspension bridge spanning the Sarapaqui River. So people can stand eye to eye with the monkeys. (Although monkeys become upset and aggressive when looked straight in the eye--so I don't recommend it.) Along with all the wildlife, La Selva offers high-quality facilities for researchers and student groups (like us!), so the place is always full with more than 40 to 60 people at one time. For researchers, that seems like a great balance of wildlife and social life.
Right now, we are in the middle in another independent project. This time around, I am working with Ben and Forest, another OTS student from New College in Florida. We are studying an ecological concept called "density dependent predation." In a nutshell, this means that if you pack more organisms of the same species in one place, a higher proportion of them will die from competition, predation, and disease. For example, it is easy for squirrels to find and eat all the acorns piled at the bottom of the oak tree and much harder for squirrels to find all the scattered acorns far away from the oak tree. In seeds, this effect usually interacts with distance, as seeds are generally more dense closer to the tree and more spread out further from the tree.
Most studies focus on density-dependent mortality overall from all types of predation. We are trying to see how density-dependent mortality varies with predator type. To do this, we are using Dipteryx panamensis, a large tree in the legume family. Its fruits have sweet green flesh on the outside of the hard, woody endocarp that contains the seed. The fruits are usually dispersed by primates and frugivorous bats that eat the green flesh and discard the seed intact away from the tree base. On the ground, a variety of predators, including bruchid beetles, peccaries, and agoutis, eat and destory the seed and each damages the endocarp in a unique way. And the endocarp persists on the forest floor for years after the seed is gone. (But don't worry, we are confining our study to seeds dropped this year/seeds that have retained some of the fuzzy flesh). So this allows us to measure how much each type of predator preys on the Dipteryx seeds at different distances from the tree and at different seed densities.
Today, the three of us went out on a search for trees and successfully found four. Then we set-up 2 meter by 2 meter plots along a transect at different distances from the tree trunk. We counted the number of seeds that succumbed to each type of damage in the plot. In La Selva, messing around in the leaf litter has its extra "perks." When searching for seeds, I almost poked a hognosed viper. Its venom is supposed to be particularly nasty and their colors make them blend into the leaves. But it is a very beautiful animal with black chevron patterns along brown. So we didn't quite finish finding all the seeds in the snake corner. And to be extra-safe, we poke around in the litter with extra special, snake-proof safety sticks. We also found plenty of more benign critters, like an incredibly adorable turtle, green-and-black poison dart frog, and cart-loads of the red frogs. Fieldwork is such a good time to enjoy the outdoors.
And howler monkeys cross with suspension bridge spanning the Sarapaqui River. So people can stand eye to eye with the monkeys. (Although monkeys become upset and aggressive when looked straight in the eye--so I don't recommend it.) Along with all the wildlife, La Selva offers high-quality facilities for researchers and student groups (like us!), so the place is always full with more than 40 to 60 people at one time. For researchers, that seems like a great balance of wildlife and social life. Right now, we are in the middle in another independent project. This time around, I am working with Ben and Forest, another OTS student from New College in Florida. We are studying an ecological concept called "density dependent predation." In a nutshell, this means that if you pack more organisms of the same species in one place, a higher proportion of them will die from competition, predation, and disease. For example, it is easy for squirrels to find and eat all the acorns piled at the bottom of the oak tree and much harder for squirrels to find all the scattered acorns far away from the oak tree. In seeds, this effect usually interacts with distance, as seeds are generally more dense closer to the tree and more spread out further from the tree.
Most studies focus on density-dependent mortality overall from all types of predation. We are trying to see how density-dependent mortality varies with predator type. To do this, we are using Dipteryx panamensis, a large tree in the legume family. Its fruits have sweet green flesh on the outside of the hard, woody endocarp that contains the seed. The fruits are usually dispersed by primates and frugivorous bats that eat the green flesh and discard the seed intact away from the tree base. On the ground, a variety of predators, including bruchid beetles, peccaries, and agoutis, eat and destory the seed and each damages the endocarp in a unique way. And the endocarp persists on the forest floor for years after the seed is gone. (But don't worry, we are confining our study to seeds dropped this year/seeds that have retained some of the fuzzy flesh). So this allows us to measure how much each type of predator preys on the Dipteryx seeds at different distances from the tree and at different seed densities.
Today, the three of us went out on a search for trees and successfully found four. Then we set-up 2 meter by 2 meter plots along a transect at different distances from the tree trunk. We counted the number of seeds that succumbed to each type of damage in the plot. In La Selva, messing around in the leaf litter has its extra "perks." When searching for seeds, I almost poked a hognosed viper. Its venom is supposed to be particularly nasty and their colors make them blend into the leaves. But it is a very beautiful animal with black chevron patterns along brown. So we didn't quite finish finding all the seeds in the snake corner. And to be extra-safe, we poke around in the litter with extra special, snake-proof safety sticks. We also found plenty of more benign critters, like an incredibly adorable turtle, green-and-black poison dart frog, and cart-loads of the red frogs. Fieldwork is such a good time to enjoy the outdoors.
4.23.2009
Monteverde
Home of a Quaker community transplanted in the 1950s. Home of delicious cheese. And former home of the Golden Toad. Monteverde definitely rates as one of my favorite sites this semester: pleasantly cool mountain air and mossy cloud forests. Monteverde itself can be an ambiguous place since that name is pinned to the region around Santa Elena, the actual town of Monteverde, and the 3 or 4 private reserves along the mountain. The San Gerardo Station where we stayed for the week is inside of the Bosque Eterno de Los Ninos (Children's Eternal Forest) (which, by the way, has a neat story about its establishment). Although we had limited electricity and no internet, we did enjoy the luxuries of hammocks with gorgeous views of Volcano Arenal and empanadas and coffee every afternoon. They take tourists! So check it out if you don't mind hiking in and out an hour.
Mark Wainwright, a herpologist and incredibly talented naturalist, gave a series of lectures about amphibian taxonomy, frog calls, and the amphibian decline in the 1980s. Mark is one of the best teachers that I have ever seen. He's lectures were so engaging and dynamic, he handled all the questions beautiful, he clearly understood and passionately loved the material. So great!
We'll skip over the taxonomy; I'm not crazy about Latin names. Learning about frog calls gave me a new respect for acoustics. Some frog species will call in choruses, with each frog singing in turn according to a hierarchy. So none of the calls overlap! How do they do that? And the tone of the songs will change with temperature and their hearing also changes with temperatures. Females at 25 C, for example, will respond to recordings of male calls made at 25 C. How crazy is that! Female hearing changes with temperature to match the changes in the male frog calls. And, this is almost the best part, Mark spends a lot of his time as a naturalist searching for frogs and recording their calls. Because there are dozens upon dozens of species out there whose calls we don't know. Without that information, we cannot reliably census frog populations, study their mating behavior, or a million other basic things.
Now here is the short version of the Amphibian Decline: In 1986, a researcher counted 1500 Golden Toads on a ridgetop in Monteverde. This critter lives belowground and only emerges once a year to breed during the heaviest rains. After that researcher secured funding and returned the next year, there were only seven toad. Similar versions of this story played out all across North, Central, and South America, mostly in mountainous regions and mostly in species that lay their eggs in the water. Here are the simple explanations that do not quite seem to fit the entire story: increased ultraviolet exposure from the thinning ozone layer, pesticide residues, disease alone, climate change.
After 20 years of research, scientists think that the frogs died from a very aggressive aquatic fungus that infects their skin. Some scientists think that this fungus was introduced from Africa, so it is an invading exotic. Other scientists have found this fungus in ponds and rivers where they find plenty of healthy frogs. So they think that global warming compounded a particularly harsh El Nino year in 1986 and left the populations more vulnerable to a naturally occuring fungus. So no one really knows. We do know that some species disappeared and some populations were decimated. Now, we have also seen many populations gradually increasing. So there is an almost happy ending to the story.
More on Cabo Blanco and La Selva tomorrow!
Mark Wainwright, a herpologist and incredibly talented naturalist, gave a series of lectures about amphibian taxonomy, frog calls, and the amphibian decline in the 1980s. Mark is one of the best teachers that I have ever seen. He's lectures were so engaging and dynamic, he handled all the questions beautiful, he clearly understood and passionately loved the material. So great!
We'll skip over the taxonomy; I'm not crazy about Latin names. Learning about frog calls gave me a new respect for acoustics. Some frog species will call in choruses, with each frog singing in turn according to a hierarchy. So none of the calls overlap! How do they do that? And the tone of the songs will change with temperature and their hearing also changes with temperatures. Females at 25 C, for example, will respond to recordings of male calls made at 25 C. How crazy is that! Female hearing changes with temperature to match the changes in the male frog calls. And, this is almost the best part, Mark spends a lot of his time as a naturalist searching for frogs and recording their calls. Because there are dozens upon dozens of species out there whose calls we don't know. Without that information, we cannot reliably census frog populations, study their mating behavior, or a million other basic things.
Now here is the short version of the Amphibian Decline: In 1986, a researcher counted 1500 Golden Toads on a ridgetop in Monteverde. This critter lives belowground and only emerges once a year to breed during the heaviest rains. After that researcher secured funding and returned the next year, there were only seven toad. Similar versions of this story played out all across North, Central, and South America, mostly in mountainous regions and mostly in species that lay their eggs in the water. Here are the simple explanations that do not quite seem to fit the entire story: increased ultraviolet exposure from the thinning ozone layer, pesticide residues, disease alone, climate change.
After 20 years of research, scientists think that the frogs died from a very aggressive aquatic fungus that infects their skin. Some scientists think that this fungus was introduced from Africa, so it is an invading exotic. Other scientists have found this fungus in ponds and rivers where they find plenty of healthy frogs. So they think that global warming compounded a particularly harsh El Nino year in 1986 and left the populations more vulnerable to a naturally occuring fungus. So no one really knows. We do know that some species disappeared and some populations were decimated. Now, we have also seen many populations gradually increasing. So there is an almost happy ending to the story.
More on Cabo Blanco and La Selva tomorrow!
4.05.2009
Spring Break with the Iberle Clan
I just returned to San Jose from a wonderful week of vacation with Ben and his parents. The trip started off with Osa, the southern, Pacific peninsula that is home to Corcovado National Park. We stayed just a few minutes walk from the entrance to the park and spend the first day hiking.
I've always been told that walking into Corcovado means seeing wildlife, but we had such good luck: scarlet macaws close in the canopy, a troupe of coati chicas drinking from a stream less than a meter from the trail, spider monkeys eating bananas, white-faced monkeys running along the branches, and (the crown jewel of the trip) a tapir.
Tapirs deserve a little more explanation. They are the largest mammal native to Latin America and look like a cross between a small hippo and a horse with a long, flexible, almost elephant-like snout. (Yeah, they are kind of awkward.)
And they are fairly rare and also very important to forest structure since they eat and disperse tree seedlings. I hope to see more tapirs and maybe peccaries, a native wild pig, when I am working on the seedling project with Chris Graham with summer.
When we weren't hiking, I lounged in the hammocks and read or threw a frisbee in the surf with Ben. Very relaxing. Ben and I had a chance to talk to the lodge's sustainability coordinator and resident naturalist, Ifigenia, about conservation on the Osa.
To me, she is a great role model because she approaches conservation very positively and holistically. She engages a wide-range of actions as conservation, from toy collections for indigenous children to recycling programs, from collaborating with women in the community to produce chickens to promoting natural literacy in the community. She accounts for social and cultural, not just environmental needs.
Actively involved in her community, she was bothered by the fact that most of the conservation groups that she saw were large and organized by rich North Americans or Europeans. So she founded ASCONA, the Asociación Costariceñse para la Naturaleza, as the first Tico conservation organization on the Peninsula. It's still very small, but they have taken on very useful, concrete projects on Carate, the nearby town. It would be a great organization for Grinnellians to work with over the summer!
After Osa, we drove to Arenal, an active volcano in the mountains north of San Jose. The cool, misty weather was a welcome change from the heat and humidity of the coast. The volcano first erupted in the 1960s, killing 80 people and thousands of cattle. Since then, it has quietened and the town has exploded with eco-tourism this and eco-tourism that.
We choose to visit the National Park, Butterfly Conservatory, Hanging Bridges, and the EcoThermales Hot Spring. All great choices. The views of the volcano from the hiking trails around its base were amazing. Steam billows from the top and the base is littered with huge gray-colored rocks that had formed during the eruption. Volcanoes are quite impressie-looking.
The hike around the two miles of trails at the Hanging Bridge turned out to be some of the best wildlife watching opportunities we had. Here's the list (not including some birds whose names I don't remember.): 1) Green hermit hummingbird that sat still and chirped for almost ten minutes. 2) Juvenile whiptail lizards with bright, electric blue tails, 3) howler monkeys dangling from the branches, 4) bright red and blue poison dart frog--wow!
I never thought that I would see a poison dart frog in the wild!. And, of course, the canopy and neat leaves, flowers, and fruits from above. A great and worthwhile tourist attraction.
Tomorrow I am off to Monteverde & Cabo Blanco for 2 weeks without Internet. Hooray! When I get back, I will add wonderful pictures of all the animals that I saw. Hasta luego!
3.28.2009
Adios Internet!
I am heading into the land of little or no internet connections tomorrow morning. In a few hours, Ben's are arriving to San Jose and then, next week, we are traveling to the Osa Peninsula and Arenal Volcano for spring vacations. When classes start up again on April 5th, we will be in Monteverde and Cabo Blanco, two gorgeous reserves without electricity. Don't worry! I'll take notes and have some great blog entries when we arrive in La Selva on April 20th.
3.22.2009
Museums on Saturday & Río Pacuare on Sunday
On Saturday, Ben and I spent the day exploring San José, museum-ing at the Museo de Arte y Diseño Moderna and Museo Nacional, and eating some delicious Tico food. My favorite exhibit in the art museum as a series of beaded ropes hanging from the ceiling that formed a 2 meter wide face when you stood back from it. Most of the beads were made out of gigantic seed pods about 10 cm in diameter and everything was painting bright happy colors. It reminded me of a larger version of a toddler's mobile. And, for the Spanish professors, we also saw an artwork with a poem that includes a whole slew of different verb tenses and perfectly demonstrates their implications. I've included the poem at the bottom of this post. I would absolutely recommend this museum; admission is incredibly cheap and all the exhibits are put together really well. After a walk down to La Sabana, large city park, we went to the Museo Nacional. We arrived late in the day, so we didn't get to see everything, but we did see a nice exhibit of pre-colonial gold jewelery and stone carved metates, or stools. The museum overlooks the Plaza de la Democracía and gives a beautiful view of the city. It's housed in Costa Rica's former army barracks; remember, Costa Rica abolished its military after the Civil War. So it is a strong symbol of Costa Rica's decision to invest in education and healthcare rather than maintain a military.
In the evening, we met a few friends at the Teatro Nacional and saw Lope de Vega's Las Biazzaras de la Belisa. I really enjoyed having a chance to see the theater again; it is such a gorgeous building. The troupe was Spanish and spoke with strong Spanish lisps, but, even so, I could decently follow some of the dialog. It was a fun play about young couples in love (a very original theme throughout the history) and the costumes were really exquisite. So it was very worthwhile--and only 5,000 colones ($10). Again, San José makes cultural events affordable. What a great city.
Today, Ben and I went to the Pacuare River for rafting through class III and IV rapids. The river winds through an indigenous reserve with virgin wet rainforests, so its gorgeous. The green was a nice change from the city. The two of us were in a raft with three lawyers who had all gone to school together at Michigan State and our English-speaking Tico guide. Despite my general clumsiness, I did not fall out of the raft. Ben did, though. He survived beautifully and enjoyed a little float before getting hauled back into the boat. Ben went on this trip last week as well, so check out his blog for more details.
So it was a great weekend! This week I have my last four days of language classes (including an oral presentation and short exam), my last two ultimate frisbee pick-up games, and my last chance to learn how to salsa before our spring vacation. I'll be spending my break adventuring through Costa Rica with three Iberles. It will be great fun!
And here's the poetic grammar lesson:
Te tuve.
Te perdí.
Cuando te tuve, yo te había tenido
desde siempre
y cuando te perdí
ya no te había tenido
nunca.
No, no te tuve.
Nos tuvimos. Se nos tuvo.
Lo teníamos. Nos tenían.
No, no te perdí.
Nos perdieron. Los perdimos.
Se perdió. Lo perdimos.
Te quiero. No te quiero.
Nos quisimos. Nos querían.
Lo quisimos.
Tú lo quisiste y yo sigo queriéndolo.
Vuelves. Me voy. Te vas.
Regreso y la herdia más fresca cada vez
el corazón más viego y cada vez
más joven la alegría porque
te tuve, porque te quiero.
Álvaro Gómez, Costa Rica
In the evening, we met a few friends at the Teatro Nacional and saw Lope de Vega's Las Biazzaras de la Belisa. I really enjoyed having a chance to see the theater again; it is such a gorgeous building. The troupe was Spanish and spoke with strong Spanish lisps, but, even so, I could decently follow some of the dialog. It was a fun play about young couples in love (a very original theme throughout the history) and the costumes were really exquisite. So it was very worthwhile--and only 5,000 colones ($10). Again, San José makes cultural events affordable. What a great city.
Today, Ben and I went to the Pacuare River for rafting through class III and IV rapids. The river winds through an indigenous reserve with virgin wet rainforests, so its gorgeous. The green was a nice change from the city. The two of us were in a raft with three lawyers who had all gone to school together at Michigan State and our English-speaking Tico guide. Despite my general clumsiness, I did not fall out of the raft. Ben did, though. He survived beautifully and enjoyed a little float before getting hauled back into the boat. Ben went on this trip last week as well, so check out his blog for more details.
So it was a great weekend! This week I have my last four days of language classes (including an oral presentation and short exam), my last two ultimate frisbee pick-up games, and my last chance to learn how to salsa before our spring vacation. I'll be spending my break adventuring through Costa Rica with three Iberles. It will be great fun!
And here's the poetic grammar lesson:
Te tuve.
Te perdí.
Cuando te tuve, yo te había tenido
desde siempre
y cuando te perdí
ya no te había tenido
nunca.
No, no te tuve.
Nos tuvimos. Se nos tuvo.
Lo teníamos. Nos tenían.
No, no te perdí.
Nos perdieron. Los perdimos.
Se perdió. Lo perdimos.
Te quiero. No te quiero.
Nos quisimos. Nos querían.
Lo quisimos.
Tú lo quisiste y yo sigo queriéndolo.
Vuelves. Me voy. Te vas.
Regreso y la herdia más fresca cada vez
el corazón más viego y cada vez
más joven la alegría porque
te tuve, porque te quiero.
Álvaro Gómez, Costa Rica
3.20.2009
Udall Scholarship
Today I got a happy e-mail from Doug congratulating me on winning the Udall Scholarship, a federally funded award for environmental leadership. It includes a stipend for graduate school and a 4-day trip to Tucson, Arizona at the beginning of August to meet the other scholars. That promises to be a really wonderful experience; I will meet a lot interesting people who I (hopefully) can work with as I embark on my post-Grinnell career adventures. Many thanks to everyone who reviewed my essays and wrote my letters of recommendation: my mama, Doug Cutchins, Shannon Hinsa, Steve & Teresa Paul, Jon Andelson, and the Truman nominee crew of Caitlin, Winnon, and Jakob.
3.19.2009
Teatro Nacional...
...is lovely and absolutely worth the 3,000 colones (~7 dollars). The buildng is extraordinarily ornate--gold trim and paintings on almost every wall and ceiling--and all the details have a story. Here are a few of the stories that I can remember:
In the front entryway, there are three sculptures by Italians and one by a Costa Rican, all completed around the same time that the theater was being built in the 1800s. At this time, Costa Rica had no formal art institutions and was generally snubbed by high-class European artists. Someone whose name I forget was one of the few Costa Ricans who studied art in Italy and he was incredibly talented, much more than his Italian class-mates. When his work depicting John the Baptist as an infant in his mother s lap won the the work in the class award (I guess they did that in art school back then), one of the Italian students was so angry that he broke the finger off of the baby. Now that statue is the National Theater and the baby is still missing a finger.
The ceiling of one of the hallways has a painting designed by an Italian who had never been to Costa Rica, or anywhere in the tropics. So he painted white, blond haired women harvested coffee (the women probably would have darker skin and hair), coffee plantations next to the beach (coffee only grows in the mountains), and a man easily holding a large bundle of bananas (a bundle of bananas is much too heavy to lift). The list goes on. I'm glad that I have been here long enough to know that it's funny.
And (this is a cool bit of technology) the floor of the main theater hall lifts up to be even with the stage, allowing the theater to hold dances and galas. We did not see it, but the machinary is apparently an impressive contraction of wheels and things.
Great, educational tourist excursion. Tomorrow, some students and I will be going back to see a play by Lope de Vega, a Spanish playwright and poet from the 1600s. Professor Richter will be happy that I am following up on the Lope de Vega poems we read last semester in the Spanish Lyrical Poetry class.
In the front entryway, there are three sculptures by Italians and one by a Costa Rican, all completed around the same time that the theater was being built in the 1800s. At this time, Costa Rica had no formal art institutions and was generally snubbed by high-class European artists. Someone whose name I forget was one of the few Costa Ricans who studied art in Italy and he was incredibly talented, much more than his Italian class-mates. When his work depicting John the Baptist as an infant in his mother s lap won the the work in the class award (I guess they did that in art school back then), one of the Italian students was so angry that he broke the finger off of the baby. Now that statue is the National Theater and the baby is still missing a finger.
The ceiling of one of the hallways has a painting designed by an Italian who had never been to Costa Rica, or anywhere in the tropics. So he painted white, blond haired women harvested coffee (the women probably would have darker skin and hair), coffee plantations next to the beach (coffee only grows in the mountains), and a man easily holding a large bundle of bananas (a bundle of bananas is much too heavy to lift). The list goes on. I'm glad that I have been here long enough to know that it's funny.
And (this is a cool bit of technology) the floor of the main theater hall lifts up to be even with the stage, allowing the theater to hold dances and galas. We did not see it, but the machinary is apparently an impressive contraction of wheels and things.
Great, educational tourist excursion. Tomorrow, some students and I will be going back to see a play by Lope de Vega, a Spanish playwright and poet from the 1600s. Professor Richter will be happy that I am following up on the Lope de Vega poems we read last semester in the Spanish Lyrical Poetry class.
3.17.2009
Tico Laughter
The two highlights of my day in San Jose are waking up to clattering pots and chatter coming from the kitchen and laughing with all the women in my household after dinner. This family has turned out to be a perfect fit for me. Along with my host family, I am also living with Marta, a Tica who has been living in Florida for the past 20 years, and Estel, a skinny, tall, blond, and absolutely ridiculous women from Spain. They are both around my mom's age, so between them and Vianney, my host mother, I am surrounded by plenty of maternal care. They can all make me laugh until I can barely breath--it's wonderful. Our rowdy and often absurd discussions about Spanish vs. Tico food, self-care during service-oriented work, and Estel's past boyfriends have been so much fun and have also taught me understand rapid Spanish. Within the last few days, I have also felt very much at home. Vianney lets me help set the table and do dishes, chores that are usually reserved for family rather than guests, and she sends me off to school with "Que Dios te cuide," or may God care for you. Whenever I come in or leave the house, I give all the family members a "beso tico," the cheek-to-cheek kiss that is a universal greeting in Latin America. So I am incredibly happy and settled here.
I have also been enjoying my time outside of my house, enjoying the city and learning Spanish at the language academy. Last Saturday, Molly and I went to a festival in downtown parks that featured local musicians, storytellers, and artists. It was a picture-perfect day: good music, whismical sculptures built out of trash to remind us to reuse and recycle, used books stands, ajd lots of happy families with young children. The event also included a wide array of wonderful vendors selling everything from organic caco produced by the Tsirushka indigenous people to wallets made by university students from recycled materials. And this is only one of the many public cultural programs that San Jose supports; this city makes art readily accessible to people from all background by funding festivals and subsidizing other events and shows. The National Theater, for example, offers short shows at 12 on Tuesday for only 500 colones, or $1. It's great.
Stay tuned for more about Arenal, Calle de la Amargura, and the National Theater.
I have also been enjoying my time outside of my house, enjoying the city and learning Spanish at the language academy. Last Saturday, Molly and I went to a festival in downtown parks that featured local musicians, storytellers, and artists. It was a picture-perfect day: good music, whismical sculptures built out of trash to remind us to reuse and recycle, used books stands, ajd lots of happy families with young children. The event also included a wide array of wonderful vendors selling everything from organic caco produced by the Tsirushka indigenous people to wallets made by university students from recycled materials. And this is only one of the many public cultural programs that San Jose supports; this city makes art readily accessible to people from all background by funding festivals and subsidizing other events and shows. The National Theater, for example, offers short shows at 12 on Tuesday for only 500 colones, or $1. It's great.
Stay tuned for more about Arenal, Calle de la Amargura, and the National Theater.
3.13.2009
Costa Rican Ultimate
After my first day of class and afterschool futbol, I played ultimate with more than five people OUTSIDE on a REAL SIZED field that we were not sharing with cows. It is an understatement to say that I was thrilled. I have missed running around chasing discs and watching the game on the sidelines. Ben found this pick-up group through a few google searches and e-mails and eventually got in touch with Kevin and Amy, a estadunidense couple who has been living in here since the 1970s. They gave us a ride there and back--incredibly generous. They both served in the PeaceCorp in Costa Rica and then liked it so much that they stuck around, found jobs at the embassy, had children, and found a great group of josefinos (as San Jose folk call themselves) to play frisbee with twice a week.
It's an eclectic bunch with estadounidenses here for a few months or for the rest of their lives, Ticos from San Jose, twenty-year olds, forty-year olds, and a fair number of women. Some of these people have been playing together for more than 10 years, so it's great (and educational) to watch them play and to (unsuccessfully, generally) guard them. They have really good field-sense, or an understanding of where other people and the disc are on the field and where there is space to move the disc on the field.
The only down-side to the evening was that I got slammed by some guys twice my size when I was going for the disc. So my arm is a little sore. For all the Grinnell frisbee folk, especially my caps: don't worry, I got the D so its worth it. Ben, Jess, and I will definitely be back for another game next week.
(Oh, and you may have noticed that I used the term "estadounidense." That means US citizen because, as Ticos are quick to point out, America is an entire continent, not a country. Americans are people on that continent, so that includes Ticos, Mexicans, Argentinians, and Columbias (among many others) as well as Estadounidenses.)
It's an eclectic bunch with estadounidenses here for a few months or for the rest of their lives, Ticos from San Jose, twenty-year olds, forty-year olds, and a fair number of women. Some of these people have been playing together for more than 10 years, so it's great (and educational) to watch them play and to (unsuccessfully, generally) guard them. They have really good field-sense, or an understanding of where other people and the disc are on the field and where there is space to move the disc on the field.
The only down-side to the evening was that I got slammed by some guys twice my size when I was going for the disc. So my arm is a little sore. For all the Grinnell frisbee folk, especially my caps: don't worry, I got the D so its worth it. Ben, Jess, and I will definitely be back for another game next week.
(Oh, and you may have noticed that I used the term "estadounidense." That means US citizen because, as Ticos are quick to point out, America is an entire continent, not a country. Americans are people on that continent, so that includes Ticos, Mexicans, Argentinians, and Columbias (among many others) as well as Estadounidenses.)
3.11.2009
City Life
After a long nap on the bus, I arrived in San Jose for our 2 weeks of homestay-ing and language learning. The Costa Rican Language Academy has gorgeous facilities with plenty of classroom space, a kitchen, soccer field, computer room, and cafe. They offer conservation, dance classes, and cooking classes in the afternoon; that should be a lot of fun. The professors and staff there all seem very amable and kind. I will really enjoy having this resource as I learn to get around the city.
The language academy and all the host families are in San Pedro, outside of the city center where the University of Costa Rica is located. So its a college town with lots of twenty-somethings, restaurants, and bars. It should be a fun area to get to know.
My host family is in Cedros, a middle-class residential neighborhood within San Pedro. It is just a short bus ride from the school. Vianney and Victor have made me feel very welcome here. Their home contains three or four extra rooms, so they are always hosting some foreigners. Vianney, the mother, seems to run the show here; she takes care of all the extranjeros and keeps an impeccably clean house. Tomorrow she will ride the bus with me to show me how to get to and from the school.
I am calling it an early night here--the early mornings and late nights of the past few days are setting in. Tomorrow night, I hope to be playing soccer at the language school and then frisbee with a San Jose group that Ben discovered. At some point during the next two weeks, I plan to check these items off my to-do list: fried platanos, Museo de Oro Precolumbiano, Museo Nacional de Costa Rica, Museo de Arte, Imperial beer, live music, Mercado Central, cafe, Museo de Arte Costaricense, parques, sodas, farmers market.
The language academy and all the host families are in San Pedro, outside of the city center where the University of Costa Rica is located. So its a college town with lots of twenty-somethings, restaurants, and bars. It should be a fun area to get to know.
My host family is in Cedros, a middle-class residential neighborhood within San Pedro. It is just a short bus ride from the school. Vianney and Victor have made me feel very welcome here. Their home contains three or four extra rooms, so they are always hosting some foreigners. Vianney, the mother, seems to run the show here; she takes care of all the extranjeros and keeps an impeccably clean house. Tomorrow she will ride the bus with me to show me how to get to and from the school.
I am calling it an early night here--the early mornings and late nights of the past few days are setting in. Tomorrow night, I hope to be playing soccer at the language school and then frisbee with a San Jose group that Ben discovered. At some point during the next two weeks, I plan to check these items off my to-do list: fried platanos, Museo de Oro Precolumbiano, Museo Nacional de Costa Rica, Museo de Arte, Imperial beer, live music, Mercado Central, cafe, Museo de Arte Costaricense, parques, sodas, farmers market.
3.09.2009
Late Nights in Palo Verde
Study abroad has its stressful moments--it makes me a little nostalgic for the Noyce elbow. I just finished a paper on our Ipomoea carnea/differential allocation/induction project. And a few days ago, I turned in another three assignments and took the mid-term exam. So the past few days have been very academic and very indoors (except for the daily futbol game).
Tomorrow, we are leaving beautiful Palo Verde to return to San Jose to stay with host families and take Spanish language classes. I am looking forward to meeting my new family: Vianney & Victor, an older retired couple, and their thirty-something year old children Yancy and Jonathon. Although I will miss the gorgeous marsh and the howler monkeys, I am looking forward to experiencing Tico city-life. Museums, book stores, bars, greasy food, farmers market, and theater are all on my list.
Tomorrow, we are leaving beautiful Palo Verde to return to San Jose to stay with host families and take Spanish language classes. I am looking forward to meeting my new family: Vianney & Victor, an older retired couple, and their thirty-something year old children Yancy and Jonathon. Although I will miss the gorgeous marsh and the howler monkeys, I am looking forward to experiencing Tico city-life. Museums, book stores, bars, greasy food, farmers market, and theater are all on my list.
3.06.2009
Paperwriting => Playa
Only a handful of days left in Palo Verde before we head to San Jose to take intensive Spanish classes and live with host families. Between now and then, I will be finishing up my paper on the Ipomoea carnea project, taking the midterm, and identifying some bugs and plants. Today everyone was very studious; I’m sure that pattern will continue until we leave.
After we turned in our papers, we took a day and a night to drive down to Punta Morales, a little beach town on the Pacific side about an hour from San Jose. It was a lovely break from the furious fieldwork and paper-writing of the last week. We hiked into the mangroves, a neat ecosystem right on the salty edge of the sea. It is “species-poor,” meaning that the area is dominated by one or two species of mangrove trees instead of the hyper-diversity in the forest and that it’s much quieter—fewer birds and insects around. The mangroves have some fascinating adaptations that allow them to survive soil conditions with high salinity and low oxygen levels. The roots have lenticels, or stomata like pores for gas-exchange, and peak above the soil either as pneomophores or stretch out from the trunk of the tree as prop roots. At low tide, the forest looks like a living jungle gym with arched roots to scrabble up and climb over. A lot of fun.
This ecosystem is really economically important to Costa Rica because it creates a safe refuge or nursery for most of the economically important fish species. As these areas have been damaged either by pollution at near-by shrimp farms or cut to make room for tourism, the fishing industry—and of course the marine life—have suffered. So fishery projects are now focusing on maintaining and expanding the mangroves as a way to increase the profitability of fishing. It’s wonderful when economic and environmental interests mesh together like that.
Now I’m off to play soccer for my study break. That’s become a regular routine in the evening with Ben, other students from the program, and Ticos working at the station. I have absolutely forgotten any of the coordination and finesse I learned in middle school soccer. So I am slow and clumsy—but it is lots of fun and good excuse to take a break from science to run around.
After we turned in our papers, we took a day and a night to drive down to Punta Morales, a little beach town on the Pacific side about an hour from San Jose. It was a lovely break from the furious fieldwork and paper-writing of the last week. We hiked into the mangroves, a neat ecosystem right on the salty edge of the sea. It is “species-poor,” meaning that the area is dominated by one or two species of mangrove trees instead of the hyper-diversity in the forest and that it’s much quieter—fewer birds and insects around. The mangroves have some fascinating adaptations that allow them to survive soil conditions with high salinity and low oxygen levels. The roots have lenticels, or stomata like pores for gas-exchange, and peak above the soil either as pneomophores or stretch out from the trunk of the tree as prop roots. At low tide, the forest looks like a living jungle gym with arched roots to scrabble up and climb over. A lot of fun.
This ecosystem is really economically important to Costa Rica because it creates a safe refuge or nursery for most of the economically important fish species. As these areas have been damaged either by pollution at near-by shrimp farms or cut to make room for tourism, the fishing industry—and of course the marine life—have suffered. So fishery projects are now focusing on maintaining and expanding the mangroves as a way to increase the profitability of fishing. It’s wonderful when economic and environmental interests mesh together like that.
Now I’m off to play soccer for my study break. That’s become a regular routine in the evening with Ben, other students from the program, and Ticos working at the station. I have absolutely forgotten any of the coordination and finesse I learned in middle school soccer. So I am slow and clumsy—but it is lots of fun and good excuse to take a break from science to run around.
2.25.2009
Ants on Sweet Plants
We’re in the middle of independent projects and, as usual, there are more problems when we are out in the field at 5 am than when we are comfortable chatting about our plans at dinner. It’s part of science, I guess. I am working on a project with Erin & Jess that looks at how plants defend structures in which they have invested different amounts of energy. Let me explain the model system so that this makes more sense:
Our organism is Ipomea carnea, a morning glory species that flowers in the dry season and is prevalent in disturbed areas around Palo Verde. The leaves and stems contain toxic or impalpable compounds that deter herbivores, but their flowers and buds are more vulnerable. To defend their floral structures, they have extrafloral nectaries on near the petals that secrete (you guessed it!) nectar that attracts ants and wasps. Researchers suspect that these aggressive insects around the buds deter herbivore from munching. Okay, so that is plant defense.
Some defensive mechanisms are constitutive, that is they are produced all the time. For examples, plants constantly produce toxins in leaves, prickles on bark, or nectar in extrafloral nectaries. These defenses and others can be induced, or increased if the plant is threatened by herbivory. So plants will produce more toxins, prickles, or nectar if they are damaged by herbivores. That is induced plant defense?
But do plants induce defenses equally across all of their structures? Would they defend a little bud, in which they had invested little energy, as vigorously as they defend a large bud, in which they had invested a lot of energy? This is the question we are asking. We are comparing the extrafloral nectar production among large and small damaged and undamaged buds. Straight forward, right?
This means that Erin, Jess, and I roll out of bed at 4:45 am to get to the nectaries before the wasps take their share and collect droplets of nectar in little capillary tubes. And we also will be counting ants on plants for 20 minutes at a time. The observation period will not be quite are intense as Ben’s methods for his project, but it will still be tedious. But that is part of fieldwork. At the end of the four days, I think we will get some really interesting results.
2.22.2009
Morning Glorys and Bees
For the next two days, we are working on faculty-led projects, which means that we are doing the data-collection and grunt work for projects design by visiting faculty members. This morning my group worked with Kathleen Kay, a plant evolutionary biologist from UC Santa Cruz. (And, just for more evidence that its a small world, she hired Allison Louthan to work in her lab, a Grinnellian who graduated last year who started the Ecology & Evolution Journal Club that Ben and I went to.) She's very approachable and laid-back (very Californian). Her project focused on who extrafloral nectaries, or sources of nectar outside the flower, can protect the flower against nectar robbers, like carpenter bees, who bite a hole in the bottom of the flower and drink nectar without pollination, and also influence pollination visitation by little soliary bees. Extrafloral nectaries generally attract aggressive insects like ants and wasps by providing food in exchange for defense from insect herbivores. She choose the morning glory flower as the study subject since they are one-day flowers (we don't have to deal with florivory—herbivory on flowers—from the day before) and another researcher had documented extensive carpenter bee damage (up to 50%) on the flower. The hypothesis is that when the EFN incentive is turned off by making stopping the flow of nectar or preventing insects from reaching the flower, the plant with be more vulnerable to floral herbivory. So that was the original game plan.
We got up and out the door at 5:15 am and found flowers that were about to open. We covered the EFN on some of the flowers with nail polish to prevent the nectar from attracting ants and left the EFN on the others. Then we sat and watched. And sat and watched some more. A large chunk of fieldwork is tedious waiting in uncomfortable positions. So waiting for the bees to fly in and wiggle themselves into the flower was good practice. Despite the tedium, I enjoyed the experience; when you sit quietly, you see a lot of neat details that you otherwise miss. I saw a gorgeous green spider huddle down below the white blossom; unfortunately, I did not see him catch anything. I heard a rodent squeaking in distress and then saw a snake slithering away in the underbrush. And I stuck my nose down the flower to watch the bees waddle around collecting nectar. Unlike the bumblebees that you might conventionally think of as the prototypical bee, these wild bees are very small (~ 3 cm), shiny, and black. They are usually solitary, not clonal and they usually eat pollen, not nectar. So the bees spent more of their visit doodling around near the anther to gather pollen and less time wiggling to the base of the flower to drink nectar. Pretty neat. No one, however, saw a carpenter bee and only a few people observed herbivory. So we'll see what the data looks like this afternoon.
And tomorrow morning, I will be waking up at 5 am to watch howler monkeys! Hooray!
2.20.2009
Hiking! Bat Caves! Watering Holes! Rocks!
This was a day of directional challenges for Ben and Hart. We started off with one of our friends to find a water hole about 30ish minutes from the station. The journey took about an hour. We spent some time there listening to the howler monkeys in the trees, watching the cane toad in the stream, and scrabbling over some rocks. It was a lovely break from the hot sun on the road. Then Jess headed back to the station for lunch, while Ben and I trotted up to find a bat cave. Yeah, bat-cave. Super cool, right? Except it proved to be quite elusive, so we spent the rest of the morning exploring different trails and watching wide-eyed (and with a wee bit of "miedo") as white-faced monkeys screamed as us and shook branches in the canopy. This species travels in groups of twenty--quite a lot of monkeys in a barrel--and are fully omnivorous, eating the infants of other monkeys, fruit, leaves, eggs, etc. It was quite amazing. After we finally declared the bat-cave to be lost, we hiked up to a rocky look-out point. We could see the whole park with the marsh in the basin and deciduous forest along the mountains. Very beautiful.
2.19.2009
Rice & Sugar-cane Fields
We spent the morning in the hot, hot, windy rice and sugarcane fields in a flat valley next to Palo Verde National Park. The area was given to small farmers in 10 ha plots around 20 or so years ago by the Costa Rican government as a rural development project. To irrigate the land, water left-over from the Arenal dam project has been diverted to the valley through a series of canals, some spanning more than 30 kilometers. So this is a hugely impressive public works/agricultural reform project--but (of course) it also creates some problems for the park.
Heavy levels of pesticide and fertilizer use pollute water that eventually flows into surrounding marshes and the Tempisque River, the largest watershed in northern Costa Rica. The chemicals may not be directly harmful, but they can build up in the food chain from insects or rodents to birds or fish and eventually back to people. And, of course, there are other problems with nutrient build-up clogging up aquatic ecosystems or the agricultural monocultures supporting artificially high pest populations.
Migrant issues also come into play with the sugarcane plantations. Unlike rice, sugarcane only demands a large work-force at establishment and harvesting. And this work is incredibly tough: hot sun, long hours, and heavy labor. This means that the companies that own the land want to import workers and then send them away and that the workers have to be willing to tolerate intense conditions. So Nicaraguans usually come over to take these jobs. On one hand, they are subject to unfair working conditions (little access to drinking water, poor living facilities, limited access to health care). On the other, some Costa Ricans implicate these immigrants with increased crime rates and over-extended public health. Sound familiar?
So it was a very interesting, but also depressing and exhausting field trip. For the rest of the day, we were encouraged to contemplate our independent project topics. I'm still contemplating. On our day off tomorrow, Ben and I have planned to do some hikes around the park to check out different sites and study organisms and brainstorm ideas. Hopefully our adventures will inspire a solid research topic.
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