Category: Field Work

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The end is here… for now.

Here I sit in Liberia, on my last day in Costa Rica. That means that field season #1 of my PhD is done!  8 weeks and 2 successful experiments later.  

I think sometimes that I must be due for a disaster. (Not that I want to jinx myself by saying it…) The general impression of grad school is that your first field season is a write off. It’s a trail run so that when everything fails and you end up with nothing at the end, you’ll know how to fix it next time.  So far I have yet to have said “trial field season”, because everything has gone more or less smoothly and I always come out with some kind of data.

Lets just hope that the people with successful field seasons are just less vocal about it.  So, all my inverts are counted, all my leaves are weighed, all my data is inputed and next on the agenda is putting it together in some recognizable form for our upcoming Bromeliad Workshop, and prepping for field season #2! 

I leave for Brazil in 2 short months, thanks to the rest of the lab who has been able to plan while I’ve been hiding out in Pitilla!

That’s it until Vancouver!  Pura Vida!

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Finally, the light

We saw the world beyond the bodega yesterday for the first time in a week. It is still there. Hard to believe when a thick wall of clouds and rain holds you hostage in your little wet field station. Robin did a cute sun dance when the wall finally opened and we were all a great deal happier. Maybe the latter is also because my first experiment is finished! There is an end to everything (but two ends to a sausage)!

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I am in love with altitudinal gradients (For Andrew)

Climbed a volcano on the weekend. I went from dry forest to rain forest to montane forest to shrubs to grasslands to bare moonscape alpine zones. The vegetation changed, the animals did, the weather did (oh boy, the storm near the top!). But I still found bromeliads at 1600m! And they had mosquito larvae in their tanks. Students, come and work on altitudinal gradients on volcanoes in Costa Rica! (but bring better rain gear, flimsy ponchos do not like strong winds ;-))

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Yay, small progress!

 

 

 

OKOK, after these success stories, I have to mention that  all my experiments are running now! Nowhere near to beeing completed, but running. I think that’s worth a blog entry too, ey? 🙂 And of course this was only possible with the help of Pitilla’s AMAZING frield crew: Helen, Lisa and Robin! The girls saved me with their never-ending willingness to sort bugs, fabricate nets and cook dinner for the over-worked weary wet postdoc. Thanks so much!