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.

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!

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!

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.

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!

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!