….and the boss was still here.
Stand back, I’m going to try science!
Not only is the Costa Rican life pretty sweet – work actually gets done too! My two experiements (Leaf packs to measure decomposition rate, and communities to measure effects of diversity on predation and decomposition) are all up and running! I’ve claimed nearly every bromeliad within a 1 km radius of the station to stick experiments in. Now back to searching for more critters so I can replenish things in 2 weeks.
I was going to include a picture of my experiment, but it actually looks identical to the header photo of this blog! A common site here at Pitilla – bromeliads with plastic tubes with mesh hats sticking out of them. Field ecology is weird.
ALSO – I’m very curious about what is happening back in Vancouver! Have Jana and I suddenly become the sole members of the Srivastava lab?? Where are the posts from home?
Names for the beasts
I forgot: the official names for our shiny blue ATVs are Cattinga and Sabrewing! Big bear will be retired soon….
FIELD WORK!
Hello from the Costa Rican Srivastava lab outpost! Just a few poctures to show the poor left-behind people that we are actually working hard here at Pitilla Biological Station. Working hard and staring at giant caterpillars. But that’s work too. Maybe. Never sure here, because everything is just so much fun!! Unfortunately, the weather is nice every day. That might sound odd, but what we really really need is a few days of Vancouverian downpour…. to fill up our dry bromeliads. How are the damselflies and chironomids supposed to lay eggs and multiply to the numbers we need for the experiment if there is no water whatsoever??? Oh well, at least these are good laundry days 😉
What a morning!
When Diane asked if I wanted to go down to Santa Cecilia this morning to pick up the *new ATV’s* (!) I obviously jumped at the chance! (You mean I get to go ATVing for half the day and still count it as field work??) So off we went, both on the old ATV that I can’t change gears properly and takes herculean strength to turn right. After a very bumpy 25 min ride into town, we pulled into Cali and Petrona’s housed to see 2 gorgeous new Yamaha ATVs parked in the yard. What a beautiful sight! The ride back up to town was one of the funnest things I have done in a long time! Racing up the dirt road which was bone dry after 3 days of no rain, plowing through mud puddles in 4 wheel drive… WHEE!! And that wasn’t even the highlight!
We stopped part way up to collect some dead leaves off a fallen tree for decomposition experiments and heard some grunting a little ways into the forest. That’s when we spotted the troupe of howler monkeys just 2 trees away! There were about 5 or 6 of them, including one youngster. We watched for about 10 minutes as they just hung out, moving between trees and munching away. One of them came right out to the nearest tree and was watching us right back!
We finally tore ourselves away from the monkeys to return to the task of ripping down the dead branch. Which involved climbing on a fallen log and jumping up and down, disturbing all the underbrush. After rather unceremoniously dismounting from the tree, I saw that we had disturbed a tarantula! It was actually pretty cute, about 5 cm long with brown furry body and black furry legs.
The rest of the ride up was uneventful in terms of wildlife, but what a ride! Under clear blue skies with a clear view of the volcanoes, tropical forest to the sides, and dry yet exciting roads – I was actually laughing to myself as we went and hoping that every day I find something to make me that happy!