(I tell you about what happened in Cahuita in my next entry – stay tuned for tomorrow!)

FRIDAY SCHEDULE

5:00 AM Pandilla-make breakfast & set out sandwiches

6:00 AM Depart for La Selva

9:30 AM Arrive at La Selva

Juan leads Discussion of Management

3 hour hike

Depart for Tirinbina (Private Reserve, lodging)

5:00 PM Edgardo – Macro invertebrate Lab Explanation

6:00 PM Dinner (Beans, Rice, hot veggies, salad, cheese, papaya)

7:00 PM Play with bats (I got to hold a nectivore!)

10:00 PM Shower-only a few bugs –yay!

10:20 PM Collapse and fall asleep instantaneously

This poison dart frog (Dendrobates pumilio) is less than an inch in size. These frogs won’t kill you if you touch them. However, you will not be a happy camper if you touch your eyes, nose, or mouth after doing so. They are poisonous because of their diet.

On Friday, we voyaged to the “Biologist Holy Ground,” La Selva Biological Station, a place listed in most biology textbooks. La Selva was established in 1954 by Dr. Leslie Holdridge as a farm dedicated to experimentation on mixed plantations. Located in the Caribbean Lowlands close to the Nicaraguan border, it covers 1,600 Ha (3,900 acres) of tropical wet forests and disturbed lands. A glorious 73% of area is primary Tropical Rain Forest!

I’m standing, clad in hip waders, in front of this giant Sura Tree of the genus Terminalia. Because the soil is very poor it has adapted cascading roots for structural support.

La Selva was purchased in 1968 by the Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS), a consortium of hundreds of Universities worldwide, and declared a private biological reserve and research station. It is used for 140 major research projects each year. A second purpose of this tropical rainforest area (in combination with Palo Verde tropical dry forest and Las Cruces Biological Research Station) is to make a biological corridor between the small reserves so that they don’t become biodiversity islands. Biodiversity islands are areas in which wildlife is isolated by roads, neighborhoods, farms, factories, and commercial centers. Without corridors between the land preserves, small parks can suffer local extinctions if rare species cannot find mates to breed with. When a habitat is isolated, even if the animals can find mates there is a high chance that they will become inbred in the future.

This Dendrobates auratus is another tiny species of Poison Dart Frog. To find them, you need to quietly look where the stilt root trees meet the ground. Though they are ity bity, their red color contrasts brightly with the greens and browns of the tropical rainforest.

Upon arriving in La Selva, we were greeted with the light music of tropical birds and hot, sticky air that smelled of lemongrass and citronella. In a cafeteria painted with a rainforest mural and decorated with research posters (one about LiDAR!), we enjoyed sandwiches and coffee (juice for me because I had just gotten off a caffeine drip from my previous all nighter spent writing my economics paper for which I earned a 90%).

Taken from bouncy metal bridge we crossed over the peaceful Pueto Viejo River after a snack. Below were some large fish, a tortoise, and a staff gauge to measure water height.

On the other side, the park manager gave us a power point presentation on the history and goals of the park.  For 2006, La Selva has a $1.1 million budget (of which 37% is from National Science Foundation grants).  This money covers the salaries and projects of the hundred staff members and administrators who care for the park and make it available for the 140 research projects occurring there each year. 

 

You can smell this Collared Peccary (Taysassu tajacau) before you see it because it stinks like the roots it likes to munch on.  We smelled/saw several of these which are called Saíno in Spanish wandering around.

 

Found within the park is a great deal of biodiversity:

            Plants – 1937 species

            Birds – 436 species

            Mammals – 123 species (71 are bats –I got to hold one!)

            Amphibians – 48 species

            Reptiles – 87 species (56 snakes)

            Fish – 43 species

            Arthropods – a whopping 3,000 moths

 

Julia is holding this adorable insect she found.  Too bad I don’t know what it is, but I think it is a type of katydid. 

 

There are 17 kilometers of paved trails in La Selva.  These are beneficial because they protect the land from erosion during the wet season and make it easy for researchers to access their research sites via bicycle.  At first, I was disappointed to hear that there were paved pathways; but if they weren’t concrete, pedestrians would widen the path around all the mud puddles which would erode away the fragile soil.

 

Steve photographs a spider devouring an insect.  We decided to veer off the path and doing some exploring after lunch.

 

It takes my breath away to be able to see so many animals just living their lives and being free.  The only other time I have seen creatures like there are here are in cages in zoos and aquariums.  This place makes me so happy because the animals can just be animals.  The manager lamented that many tourists complained of not seeing big exciting mammals.  But you are not guaranteed to see anything here.  That’s what makes it so special when you do.  If you want to see wildlife you need to be quiet and patient.  There is so much living here but you have to slow down and open your eyes to be able to see it. 

 

Poison Dart frogs make good fathers.  This one carries a baby tadpole on its back from puddle to puddle.  This one is a Dendrobates pumilio.

 

A problem La Selva faces is poaching.  The reserve does not have many programs to connect the local community to the reserve so they do not feel ownership and the desire to protect it.  They see lots of international researchers coming in with expensive equipment but they don’t see much personal financial benefit.  Most of the researchers here don’t even know anything about the local town besides the name of the closest bar.  It’s understandable that they can get completely lost in their work in such a beautiful place, but if park administrators and researchers want to prevent poaching they need to invest some time and energy in community outreach.

 

This palm frond is symbolic of how I feel about La Selva.  Did you know that my name means “palm frond?”

 

After taking a hike through La Selva we stayed the night at Trimbina Rainforest Center which consists of 345 Hectacres of tropical rainforest and is sponsored by the Milwauikee Public Museum for ecotourism and children’s activities.  The bus ride there was terrifying.  We had to all get off and walk over a rickety wooden bride that cracked and bowed a bit when the bus crossed.  After dinner a Mexican grad student named Lisa gave an incredible presentation on bats.  She regularly catches bats in mist nets and records their mass, sex, and species.  She showed us several nectivores, insectivores, and a vampire bat.  You can tell what a bat’s diet is by looking at its eye size, ear, and mouth shape.  I held a tiny nectivore! 

 

SATURDAY SCHEDULE

5:30 AM Bird Watching

6:30 AM Breakfast & Make Lunch

10:00 Arrive at Braulio Carillo

10:30 AM Hike to Botarrania & Gonzales Stream Macroinvertebrate Lab

1:30 PM Group departs- 8 of us try to hail a bus to Cahuita (or general direction)

3:30 PM successfully stopped bus

 

 

Meg, Cheslea, and Emily look for aquatic macroinvertebrates. 

 

Our experiment compares the biodiversity and species composition among the microhabitats of deep pools, shallow pools, deep rapids, and shallow rapids.  The stream was gorgeous.  There were lilac colored flowers and lots of butterflies.  Many classmates learned the hard way that rocks are slippery when wet.  I learned the hard way that hip waders can tear (but duct tape can fix them). 

 

 

Yoshi holds a tadpole that will soon loose its tail and become (that’s right Pinnochio) a real frog!

 

Stream macroinvertebrates are often surveyed because they make great bioindicators.  A bioindicator is a living thing that is used to determine the health of an ecosystem.  Macroinvertebrates are good bioindicators because they are small, easy to sample, low in abundance, and most importantly, highly susceptibility to physical and chemical changes in habitat structure.  To use them to measure how healthy an area is, we first need to understand them.  Right now there is no official guide for tropical aquatic macroinvertebrates so a guide from North America is used instead.  The purpose of our survey is to establish a baseline.

 

 

Zach stands in front of Sucio River, which gets its color from the iron it picks up from Volcan Irazu.  It has a pH of 3-4.

 

After the survey, we had lunch on the rocks alongside the braided Sucio River.  After lunch, when we were hiking back it started to rain.  I love rain!  The rain poured down my face and into my mouth and tasted sweet.  I really felt enveloped in the hydrologic cycle.  The rain poured down onto the leaves, dripped down the trees, soaked into the soil, where it would slowly travel until it made its way to stream.  In the stream were pockets of life from fish to crustaceans to insect larvae to international college students.  What a crazy beautiful world!  I smiled to myself as I saw Steve and Rachel, an adorable couple, stand in the stream using a giant palm frond as an umbrella.

 

 

The rocks are colored by iron from Volcan Irazu upstream.