Where's Kate This Time?

View Los Tuxtlas Area in a larger map

Here. Los Tuxtlas Biological Station in Veracruz, Mexico. Closest "city" of note, Catemaco. The station is run by UNAM (Mexico's largest and arguably best university), and I'm here with researchers from UCLA studying damselfly behavior and mating.

I spend 9-5 kneedeep in a creek, catching and marking damselflies (Hetaerina titia and Hetaerina occisa). How do you mark an insect? With some kind of fancy high tech marking techniques? Nope. With paint pens. Each damselfly gets a four digit color code, which then gets painted onto their abdomen. We record it's sex, species, and location and then take a picture of its wings (often the hardest part of the process) and let it go where we found it.

Why? Because there are two species of damselflies in this area with some interesting behavior. The two species are very closely related, close enough that even they will confuse each other. This could be a major problem when it comes time to mate, as wooing the wrong female could cost you a lot of time and energy. So it appears that one of the species, titia (above) starts developing black wings during the mating season, and only during the mating season. This only happens when both titia and occisa are found in the same stream. When the species are apart, they both keep their clear wings.

What we're interested in finding out is How do titia know when to develop those black wings? and Is it really used for identification of their species? To test the first question we set up one section of the stream where we're darkening the males' wings earlier than usual, to see if newly emerged damselfly males take their cue from seeing older males with darker wings. To test the second question, we conduct tethering tests. We (and by we I mean the infinitely dextrous J.P.) attach a female damselfly to the end of a fishing line with some duct tape. Then we "fly" her past a territorial male to see if he's interested. To make it interesting we darken some of the females' wings, to see if a) he's still interested in a titia female whose wings are darkened earlier than usual, and b) if he can be duped into believing an occysa female is a titia, if her wings are darkened. We use a similar process to see if territorial males will defend their territory against males of the other species, with and without darkened wings.

Stay tuned for results. For awhile. Because we won't know anything until, like, this Fall when J.P. analyzes the data.

Leaaaviinnn' on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again...

Tomorrow I end my six month jaunt in Costa Rica. Along with scrounging up some dinner, I still have to rearrange my luggage to find a way to fit everything in two suitcases. I'm considering leaving behind a host of things, from my bulky bookbag to my soaked, stinking sneakers. The only thing holding me back is I would rather donate the usable items, and I don't want to saddle the hostel with that!

A part of me is legitimately worried about coming home. I'm comfortable in Costa Rica now, I'm used to the country and all the things it does have (incredible fruit) and does not have (English language libraries). There's an awful little phenomenon known as reverse culture shock, that happens particularly to travelers returning from long trips. You've heard of culture shock, the disorientation you feel when you enter a foreign country. Reverse culture shock is the disorientation you feel when you return to your own country. It's particularly uncomfortable because not only do you feel disoriented, but you get a secondary discomfort when you recognize this feeling, that home has become strange to you.

Some things I will miss:

-incredible bananas. They just taste more banana-y here.

-unexpected wildlife, like the parrots that frequent the cities

-lots and lots of hummingbirds

-batidos, essentially smoothies with tropical fruit

-on that note, all the tropical fruit: guanabana, maracuya, cas, mamon chino, papaya, pineapple

-being able to get anywhere, cheaply, via bus

-owning exactly one pair of close-toed shoes

-yucca, expertly prepared by Rosa y Socorro

Some things I will not miss:

-lots and lots of rain

-the mosquitoes that come with lots and lots of rain

-perpetually damp sheets

-being tied to a bus schedule to get anywhere

-gallo pinto. For now, at least.

Interesting Article on Foreign Travel

This is from the Chronicle of the Horse, a publication that follows competitions and general goings-on in the horse world.  The author is currently following the Pan-American Games in Mexico and talks about her adaptations for working in foreign countries.

Managing Expectations

While I haven't been hung in red tape yet (knock on wood!), when I travel around Costa Rica on my own I usually expect something to go wrong, at some point.  I've missed buses, spent hours in a bank only to be told there's something wrong with my traveler's cheques (moral: don't EVER bring traveler's cheques!), and gotten completely lost.  But you slog through the lines and figure it out, and eventually get your money and find your bus.

Apologies for the lack of posts.  My bad.  Some recent goings-on:

  Another outreach with Tercera Edad

I really like hanging out with little old ladies.  And they're earring making machines!  I can't tell you how many itty bitty pieces of metal I torqued with my pliers.  I also made a some for myself though, so can't complain.  The little old ladies are so happy to listen to my broken Spanish.  They're also all in love with one of the students.  When we went to help with the recycling collection in town one of the old ladies stole him away.  An hour later we see him walking back towards us, carrying her groceries.

Shay with COOLER of arroz con pollo!

Homestays + Family Dinner

Students spent a weekend with local families, and the next week we invited all of the families for a big thank you dinner.  The preparations that went into this affair were incredible.  We had at least 3 tents rigged around the open air classroom to fit the maximum number of people.  We ordered more plates, hired a DJ, and cooked an insane amount of arroz con pollo.  I believe the cooks made a total of SEVEN tres leches cakes.

Gabriel Calderon with beans, pre-roasting

Coffee Farm Visit

We visited an organic coffee farm near Atenas and got a tour by the owner Don Gerardo and his son Gabriel.    Although they don't make as much profit as they would on a conventional farm, they are both incredibly happy with their decision to go organic.  Don Gerardo said that the difference in profit doesn't account for the value of your health, your freedom (from the constant chemical rigamarole), and your peace of mind.  

They've also found that the combination of organic and shade cultivation has actually decreased their pest outbreaks, compared to neighbors.  For those who don't know, coffee plants are actually happiest under shade, and can live up 15+ years.  Many farmers grow them in direct sun to force higher bean production, but this results in weaker plants with more volatile harvests due to the stress of sunlight.  Under shade, not only is the crop more consistent, the plants are also healthier and can respond better to diseases.  

El Sur

According to students (and most staff, although some miss Nicaragua), this is the best trip we've been on so far.  We visit a community of 10 families called El Sur de Turrubares, which is working on making their own ecotourism group.  Each year they get 150-200 visitors in a mix of volunteers, school groups, and "normal" tourists.  We started with a very muddy, slippery hike through Carara National Park that the students absolutely loved, even though at least 3 of them bit the dust (or clay in this case) on the trails.  After that we visited the trapiche (traditional sugar mill) again and gorged ourselves on different forms of raw sugar.  Definitely a good pick-me-up after a hard hike.

That night some of us left with Edgardo for a night hike around the area.  And by night hike I mean a walk down the road at 7 or so, once it was dark.  But we still saw quite a lot of very cool frogs, including glass frogs (below) and giant rain frogs that eat other frogs! 

Edgardo also pointed out this egg mass on leaf, hanging over the stream.  I actually know quite a bit about it, because the lab I worked in during college studied something very similar.  The frogs lay their eggs on a leaf, and the tadpoles hatch and grow within the egg mass.  Once they get big enough, they drop off into the water below.  As if that wasn't cool enough, it's been shown that at a certain point, the tadpoles can decide when to drop off!  It's best for them if they can stay on the leaf for as long as possible, to avoid predators.  However, there are two types of predators that like to eat eggs!  There are wasps, which will eat only a few eggs, and snakes which can eat the entire egg mass.  The tadpoles are ready for them though.  If they feel a wasp vibration on the leaf, the closest few tadpoles jump ship, but the others stay put because they "know" that it's just a wasp and probably won't come close.  If they feel a snake vibration, all of them will drop off to evade impending doom.  The coolest part is that they can distinguish "wasp vibration" from "snake vibration" from rainfall, from wind, etc.

Tomorrow night we leave for Panama and I may be more or less incommunicado for the week, although I'm holding out for good internet at the hotel.  We'll be staying in Panama City and visiting the canal, the Smithsonian Research Center, a national park, and various historical locations around the city.  I'm excited to see skyscrapers again!

A collection of cool wildlife and cool people

Anne, Achim's daughter at a INBioparque

Toucan!  At the coffee farm...instant distraction. 

Don Gerardo with his coffee plants

Cheeky monkeys tryin to steal our bananas!  Literally!  Although we did put them there on purpose to entice monkeys....

Some New Pictures

New Pictures!!
These are from pretty much the whole semester so far: Manu, Monteverde, Poas Volcano, Carara, Atenas, community outreaches, etc.

Some highlights:
-Monteverde. In total. It's a small (but growing) town in the mountains. The ecosystem up there is called "cloud forest" because it's so high up it gets a lot of precipitation from being IN the clouds. It's very surreal looking, all of the trees have tons of epiphytes (bromeliads, orchids) growing on every surface and it's almost dripping wet at all times. There's also swampy areas, and once you get up high enough you reach elfin forest, where all the trees are short from the wind exposure. Over the course of our stay we hiked the trails in Monteverde park twice, and one of the interns and I stayed an extra night with a professor and his family. We got to wander around the town of Monteverde and see a band of local scientists play in a bar. I get the sense that there's a really big scientific community in the town, I visited or heard of at least 4 research stations there.

Independence Day (Sept 15) in town. The parade was very similar, and yet very dissimilar to parades at home. You do have the marching bands, the baton twirlers, the floats, etc. But you also have girls with big skirts and guys doing rope tricks, and women in THREE INCH HEELS in a PARADE. The food was very similar. No hot dogs or burgers, but meat cooked over a grill, served on a skewer with a tortilla. Close enough (and delicious).

We've had a couple of outreaches with a local old folks group, called the Tercera Edad (Third Age). It's a bunch of active little old ladies and men who get together, usually at the church. Twice now we've done arts and crafts with them, and it's pretty fun. The little old ladies get pretty creative, and they're really happy to just talk to young people, even if we don't always understand them.

On our trip to Carara and the surrounding mangrove swamp, I saw some very cool wildlife: Boat-billed heron,, Roseate spoonbill, and big crocodiles (see album) and poison dart frogs.

I've also seen some white-faced capuchin monkeys around campus. They literally tried to steal our bananas the other day. Cheeky monkeys.

Finally, last Sunday I went with a professor and his family to a German festival in San Jose. We drank German beer, ate German brats, and listened to traditional German music. The first two were incredible, the last was horrible. I was also mistaken for German quite a few times. I usually didn't realize the person was speaking German for a few sentences. I just thought they had a really bad Spanish accent or something.

Manu Field Trip

First off happy birthday to Mama Llama, who's all alone in Downingtown today!

This past weekend we took the students to a field station in Guapiles, Costa Rica. We stayed in the field station they used for a semester, which consists basically of cabins. Pictures are on their way, once I can find the time (and Internet) to edit and upload them.

We started the trip with a hike in Braulio Carrillo National Park, which was established in 1978 after the government put a highway through a rainforest. Environmental groups pitched a fit and got the park made. So now they have a national park with a big highway running right down the middle. There's actually a fair amount of "discussion" over what kind of effect this has on the flora and fauna. In ecology, when an ecosystem is broken into pieces (for instance, by agriculture or a highway) it's called fragmentation. Particularly in forests, having more "edges" can drastically change the characteristics of the area. Certain species like to be on the edge and others don't. For example, some birds think an edge means the end of the forest and won't cross it, even though there's another forest 100ft away. Some tree seedlings need shade to grow well and if their seeds land between fragments, they won't survive. This has big consequences for how animals move around and how their populations are regulated. Instead of having one large population with lots of genetic diversity (like a city), you end up with small populations that are very genetically similar (think towns up in the Appalachians...).

The day after Braulio Carrillo, we went to El Zota, an organic farm, for a tour. While there we helped them make up this soup of microorganisms for their compost pile. Microorganisms help decompose compost faster, and can be used in various other ways around the farm (enhancing fertilizers, cutting down on animal smells). El Zota focuses on cattle, both for dairy and meat production, but they also had pigs, goats, chickens, and an extensive garden. Everything is grown organically, and they maintain a portion of their farm as forest. We got a hike through the forest as well and ended up seeing strawberry poison dart frogs,, a spider monkey, and howler monkeys. I've officially seen all four species of monkeys found in Costa Rica! (Spider, Howler, Squirrel, and White-faced Capuchin in case you were wondering.)

The last day of the trip we visited the Dole Banana Plantation, and were given a tour by a very rehearsed, slippery guide. As another intern put it: "I liked the tour so much it made me suspicious." Some tidbits:
-they actually still use MULES!
-the bananas have to be covered to avoid damage, so all the trees look like they have blue plastic garbage bags hanging from them
-what we think of as a bunch is actually called a hand, and there can be dozens of hands (=over a hundred bananas) on one stalk
-there is no such thing as a banana tree, only banana plants
-banana plants frequently fall over, so all have to be secured by twine to keep them upright
-it's really hard to get bananas to reproduce, so all seedlings are generated in a lab.