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!
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