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!