Tag Archives: 2025

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Pre-Departure Prepping: Fulfilling my Planet Earth Aspirations

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Hey y’all, my name is Sadhana! I’m a rising junior at Rice studying Bioengineering. Our trip to Belize is literally one day away (eek!) and I’m so so excited. We had an information meeting around the end of the spring semester, and since then I’ve been getting my snorkeling gear in check, and am about to start packing. Which… considering the state of my room, may take a while. Not to fret, a whole 24 hours await 🫡

Alongside gear, we’ve had a ton of pre-work to get ourselves familiarized with flora and fauna around Belize’s Las Cuevas Research Station and Glover’s Reef (representing portions of the rainforest and coral reefs respectively). I’ll be the first to say–I massively underestimated the time it’s taken me to get through it. But it’s been so, so worthwhile. In the rainforest, I’ll be scavenging for fungi and lichen, and in the reefs, I’ll be grazing for parrotfish (puns intended if you find them). 

Learning about the taxonomy and sheer variety of species has been insane. I am absolutely in love with fungi and I could barely fit all the species I wanted into my taxon ID sheet. As a tropical habitat, Belize has so many niches that the fungi occupy. And don’t even get me started on the cool cellular adaptations lichen have, merging algae and fungi into one superbody. On the other hand, I didn’t know much about parrotfish before starting on my reef taxonomy presentation. I’ve come to internalize how important parrotfish are as a keystone species, not to mention their interesting jaws. They serve the purpose of maintaining reefs, but they’re also so flamboyant, I love it. 

I think it would be amazing to find any of the species I have on my ID sheet, but I’m even more excited to find ones I haven’t seen yet. However, I have absolutely no experience doing fieldwork, so figuring out what to look for, what to remember, and how to maintain field notes will all be challenging, and I’m a bit nervous about that. But I did live in the tropics of India, so I’m used to similar climates. This is my idea of all the David Attenborough Planet Earth documentaries I’ve grown up watching, so I can’t wait to put in the work, no matter how intense it might get. We’ve got a lot planned, and I just know it’ll be a trip to remember.

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Pre-departure: Caecilians, Coffee, and Packing Chaos

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Hi everyone, my name is Elise Trenk! I’m an environmental science and economics double-major, and I’m a rising sophomore at Brown. We are now two days out from departing Houston for Belize and I am incredibly excited! So far, I’ve been focused on researching my taxon groups, amphibians (rainforest) and angelfish (reef), and preparing my topic presentation on tropical parasites, diseases, and medicinal plants. I’ve greatly enjoyed the process of researching in these areas thus far and have learned (what I would consider) some pretty interesting facts. Here are a few:

1) There is an amphibian called a caecilian that gets around by feeling with a tentacle region on its head. Its appearance is in between a snake and a worm and it lives in the moist forest undergrowth. I am desperate to find one and I will promise you now that if I do, I will write the longest blog entry you have ever seen about how cool it is.

2) Some of the angelfish species that we may see in Belize (like the gray angelfish) can be up to 2 feet long (60 cm)!

3) Certain species in the plant family Rubiaceae (which encompasses many medicinal plants) can produce products such as quinine and coffee.

I fear I may have made one mistake as a result of spending too much time learning about caecilians and other cool species: I have not focused on packing nearly as much as I should have. The scattered clothes and gear across the floor of my room serve as a testament. Tonight will be a long night, I’m sure…but spending the time learning about caecilians will be worth it (I hope). I leave for Houston tomorrow afternoon and will stay the night before meeting with the group on Friday morning.

Overall, I am most excited to hike around in the rainforest and swim in the reef and encounter some amazing species! I am a bit nervous about the snakes, but I’m sure that we will be fine as long as we stay alert and [leaf] them be : ) This will be my first time doing field work (outside of the BIOS 213 Intro Lab to Ecology and Evolutionary Biology), snorkeling, and visiting the tropics, and I’m looking forward to learning as I go. I hope to learn as much as I can while I’m there and enjoy this adventure of a lifetime!

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Pre-departure excitement!

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Hi everyone! My name is Adam and this is the first of many blog posts recording and reflecting on my experiences during this amazing field camp in Belize. I’m sure you’ll get to know me very well over the next couple of weeks.

This whole trip is so exciting and I’m looking forward to spending time in Belize studying and appreciating the beauty of both the rainforest and the reef. I’m an Environmental Science major, and this is an amazing opportunity to immerse myself in and learn about a rich and beautiful ecosystem. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve spent time doing research and preparations, learning as much as I can about the ecosystems we’ll be experiencing and getting all the gear I’ll need for hiking in the rainforest and snorkeling off the reef. I was paying particular attention to trees and cryptobenthic fish, which I’ll be the expert on in when we’re in Belize. I learned a lot about the different species we should see in Belize and I’m excited to identify some of the ones that came up in my reading. I also did some research on the biogeographic history of the region, and how different species came to be distributed as they are in the region. I’m can’t wait to share what I’ve learned and hear about what my classmates have been learning about.

I’m excited for how immersive this trip should be. Since we’ll be in remote scientific research stations, our entire days will be jam-packed with scientific field work. Last summer, I did a field camp study abroad program which took me to Greenland and taught me some of the basics of ecosystem monitoring, and I imagine that (although the ecosystems will be radically different) some of the skills I learned will carry over. I’m a bit nervous about the physical requirements of the trip—hiking, swimming, and generally being outside in hot, humid tropical conditions all day might be taxing. I think I’ll be able to manage; I just want to be very conscientious that I’m hydrating and getting enough rest.

Overall, I’m super excited to get this opportunity and I can’t wait to embark on this adventure—I hope you’ll follow along!