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.
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