Las Cruces

This is my first full day at Las Cruces and I've had a wonderful time so far. An extensive tropical botonical garden surrounds the lab, dorms, and dining area. I've never seen so many bromeliads, flowers, palms, and ferns in one place before.

In the morning, we took a short hike through some rain forest fragments bordered by thirty or so year old, degraded pastures. We talked about "edge effects," or how the microclimatic conditions (ie, temperature, wind speed, humidity, sunlight) when part of the forest is removed and how these abiotic changes affect the plants and animals that live there. The bottom-line is that what happens at the edge of fragments penetrates into the forest interior affecting diverse, multi-species interactions. So the whole system, not just the jaguars or the trees, are impacted.

For one of the homework assignments, I have to collect and identity 10 insects at each field station. So Scott, another OTS student, and I caught some bugs after lunch. Stingless wasps that build elegent nests attached to walls. Bluish flies feeding on banana flowers. Unsuspecting beetles. They are in the freezer, convienently dead in the name of science to make the identification process easier. Mauricio, the Costa Rican professor, will show me the ropes of bug identification tomorrow morning. Plant taxomomy is second learning curve that I have to overcome. Susan, the other professor, will take me on a walk this afternoon to teach me all the vocabulary.