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.