Mud and Humidity

The idea was simple: catch some bees and see which of the flowers in their landscape they preferred. We were all set to go, we had designed our enclosure…and then Pete (our instructor) came to give his two cents. The next thing we knew we were in the midst of so much silliness we couldn’t get free. It started like this:
1. Plan A1: Catch Bees. We needed to be sure that bee preferences aren’t being biased by the foraging bees have already done that day, so we needed to get them from the nest as they head out in the morning. So, how to find a nest? Pete suggested catching foraging bees and tying a flag to them so we could follow them back home. Here's the plan: attach some flagging to a piece of dental floss and tie the floss around a bee. What could be easier?
2. Plan A2: Modify flagging. We actually did tie little dental-floss strings to bees. It really took some doing. The problem was that the bees couldn’t fly with the extra weight. So we cut off the flagging and just left the floss—still too much. We cut some of the floss—still too heavy. By the time we shortened the floss enough so the bees could fly, we weren’t able to see it and track them.
3. Plan B: We tried just following bees around the paramo, trying to see what direction they were flying in. The five of us spread out, shouting directions “there goes one, follow it!” and crashing through the heather. We found no nests.
4. Plan C1: Just catch some bees and throw them into our snazzy enclosure (see photo). We put in the first bee. It wasted no time in flying to the upper most corner of the enclosure and refusing to budge.
5. Plan C2: Add all the rest of the bees. Results show all bees huddled in upper corner of enclosure looking surly.
6. Plan C3: Re-orient flowers to upper corner to see if bees will notice them
7. Plan C4: Release bees and look for new project.

The farm we were staying on in Cerro de la Muerte is called Cuerici. It's got a large chunk of primary oak/bamboo forest. It's also a working trout farm where they raise rainbow trout. The property has two large buildings, one that has the kitchen and sleeping areas, the other is a big, barn-like building that was our lab. It has a fireplace that we all crowded around. It was really pretty cold in the mornings and evenings.
Raising blackberries is a big industry in this area, and lots of forest has been converted to big patches of the stuff. But the good side is that most meals have some blackberry component: juice, jam, etc.
We headed up to the real highlands, the paramo, where the vegetation is just shrubby groundcover. It's biologically a bog or a heath biome. We did some very silly pollination studies where we captured bees and tried to make them visit flowers. The bees were definitely not into it. I'll say more next time.
We're also at that point in the course where all the single people are coupling up, much to the annoyance of the rest of us. We are learning the likely places to look for our field mates in the morning when it's time to get to work.

I just wanted to post a quick note that we all survived the cold highlands at Cuerici and have made it safely to the lowland rainforest of La Selva. It has been a shock to all of our systems to go from head-to-toe wool to bare minimum clothing and 100% humidity.
I'll say more and post photos from Cuerici soon.

I both love and hate my rubber boots. And that doesn't take their smell into consideration. After the cave incident they have never been the same. My feet are highly disinclined to be put into them.
Today we are doing data analysis, preparing to present our findings, and packing up camp. We travel with several big wooden boxes that hold our field supplies and we're each in charge of one, mine is the one with all the chemicals (obviously they didn't know me when they made the assignment). Then tonight we'll party. Until then, though, we are finding it difficult to create the appropriate statistical tests to examine our data.
We leave tomorrow morning for Cuereci where we will probably not have internet. We'll be there for a week or so. It is at high altitude and will probably be pretty cold. Additionally, we will all be staying in one big cabin, so we will be testing how well we can all get along.

Yesterday we spent the whole day hiking to and in a cave system that's close to our field station. I didn't take any pictures because I didn't want to risk brining my camera, hopefully I'll be able to get some from someone else.
Given the considerable dangers that the expedition could have encountered, the guide company did a presentation with us the night before we went. The presenters only spoke Spanish, so our TA, Pablo translated. It was an extremely loose translation but managed to convey the major dangers, including statements like "If you get Histoplasmosis, symptoms range from a mild cold to total body failure". By the end of the presentation, we were all sure that the trip would end in certain death for most of us.
We hiked in to the cave entrance, which was about 2 miles up and down about 1,000 ft of elevation in our rubber boots, without a trail to speak of. When we got to the cavern, we hiked in about a kilometer, past the bats, through the extremely slippery mud, and got to the bank of a fast river that was about 50ft across. We hiked around, mostly through the river which averaged waist high water, for about 4 hours. There were times when we descended narrow, slippery tubes barely wider than our bodies. There were crevases in which you had to wriggle on your belly and turn your head sideways to fit through. You could never have done something like this in the states, the liability would have been enormous! But it was an incredible experience and we didn't lose a single person.

The countryside around here is gorgeous, even though very little of it is primary forest anymore. We rarely drive around, since we mostly stay at the station. Here is a view of the valley that I see every morning on my run. I hope it comes through, I know the photos have been difficult sometimes (and I have no idea why yesterday's is sideways)

Today we visited a private farm that has been converted to a conservation area for primary forest. The people we met with there work on jaguar monitoring and conservation. The farm continues to operate to suport the hundred or so people who live on it.
Costa Rica has a huge amount of national park land but they don't protect it. Poaching and illegal logging are rampant. The government under the current administration gives no money to secure the parks. Private areas like this that employ guards to patrol the reserve are the only way that land and animals are protected.
The group working to protect the cats in Costa Rica is ProCAT. Check out their website http://www.procat-talamanca.org/

So, today we were to start with the serious data collection for our study. We trucked the two miles out to the site where the trees are, across the river, through the mud. We collected on three trees before the rain started. We tried to wait out the monsoonal rains, but ended up having to slog back to the station (a 45 minute walk in good conditions) so as to avoid getting stranded on the other side of the river.
Better luck next study.
Here is a photo of Ryan trying to punch holes in the leaves of one of our trees. The other photo is a strangler fig, with Martin for scale.

This is us in the field, collecting ants and disturbing trees.

This place is really amazing, it's half botanic garden and half research station. The weather has been so reasonable, it's warm but not unbearable and it rains in the afternoon. You would think that we would swelter in our knee-high rubber boots but it's not actually too bad. It's definitely worth having them on for the mud and the snakes.
We started working on our group projects today. My group is going to look at the relationship between a group of ants and their host plant. The ants defend the plant from invaders (plant or insect) and the plant gives the ants a home and food from special structures at the base of the leaves.

I just figured out how to include this map so you can see (with poor resolution) where I am.

So, everyone will be surprised to know that Costa Rica did not beat Germany. The Costa Ricans took it pretty well, I think. Almost like they expected it.
Today we travelled by bus to Las Cruces Biological station, in the south. It took about 8 hours. We stopped for lunch and had a chance to watch a bit of the Argentina/Ivory Coast game. Our TA for the course, Pablo, diligently ran around the bus holding up his radio trying to get reception to give us updates (that's him in the picture).
I lost a bunch of photos off my camera today and I don't know why, so all I have to show of the countryside is this photo. We passed lots of pinapple plantations, too, and I would have liked to show how they grow from plants on the ground and not on trees (much to the surprise of many people on our bus).

Today is the first official day of our course, and the main order of business is...watching the World Cup. Costa Rica is poised to get completely slaughtered by Germany, so there will be giant TV screens up all over town for everyone to watch. Our fearless leaders decided that it would be better if we didn't go downtown to watch in case Costa Rica manages to score or (as unlikely as it sounds) to win, we may not get back for three days. We're going to watch on the university campus instead, which is in walking distance.
We had the awful "get to know each other" dinner last night. Barf. I managed to only say a couple of inappropriate things, I think. Mingling gives me a headache.