Hi everyone! Day 3 in the forest and the scenery has really grown on me : ) I woke up for birding this morning to a beautiful sunrise over the treetops. We saw four scarlet macaws today! After breakfast (pineapple, bananas, eggs, and beans), we headed to the lab to process the results from our Cecropia project. We massed each leaf and recorded the change in weight since yesterday afternoon. We obtained mixed results, with some leaves gaining mass (likely from water uptake) and some losing mass (likely from herbivory). Therefore, we decided that we could not make a definite conclusion regarding the defenses in trees colonized by ants compared to defenses in trees uncolonized by ants.

We were surprised to hear that the director of the FCD (friends for conservation and development) was at Las Cuevas today. He delivered an impromptu presentation on conservation in the Chiquibul forest for us and I really enjoyed hearing from him! After lunch (rice, pork, and salad), we headed to the classroom for more taxon presentations and a topic lecture. Then, we headed into the field to play with ants! Leaf cutter ants cultivate fungal gardens in their nests, and we excavated two (one young, one old) to see them. In the young nests, we eve found the queen ant on the fungal garden, which was incredibly cool. We spent the majority of the expedition stomping to keep the ants from climbing up our boots. Leaf cutter ants have a powerful bite, and I was fortunate to not experience it…so far.

After the sun set, we returned to the forest for a final time to see what species we could find in the dark. Sadly, we could not find any amphibians. We did find some snakes! But they part of an experiment, so they were made out of clay. Tomorrow, we head to the caves and I look forward to seeing what we’ll find. That’s all for now! –Elise