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Day 6: Breathtaking View (literally….)

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Hi Blog,

Today was a very exciting day! The day, as always, started off with a delicious breakfast from Angie! Apparently, there were a family of howler monkeys in the tree at the edge of the clearing that a bunch of people got to see, but I did not, which I’m a little sad about. But I did get to see some in the Caracol on day 2 which was cool.

After breakfast, we went to the Chiquibul cave, which was super cool! Surprisingly, the cave entrance was directly outside of clearing, so it was a very short walk. The entrance was much wider than I expected, and walking into the cave and actually being in the cave was so surreal. It was significantly cooler (literally and figuratively), and the cave was hazy, which added to the surreal effect.

Pre-caving photo!

It was really cool to see the geologic formations, especially since the baby stalagmite appeared sticky, which is apparently calcium! I thought it was interesting how the tour guide pointed out to not touch the geologic formations, since the human imprint will stop the growth of the geologic formations. It made me aware of the disruptive effects that humans can have, even if the actions seem really minuscule.

Although I did not directly have any mammal sightings, I was still able to see holes in the ceiling of the cave, which the KARST team explained were the roosting sites of the various species of bats in the area! No picture, since we were not allowed  to take any photographs within the caves in order to minimizing looting risks.

After the cave, we went on a hike to collect our pitfall trap samples, which was done quite efficiently since we had been on the paths before and had annotated thoroughly in our field notebooks of their locations. Then, we had lunch which was chicken, rice and beans, and plantains. These were yummy as usual! After lunch, we went right back to work to analyze our pitfall trap samples and then present to Dr. Evans and Dr. Solomon immediately after. My vial for the ground sample had a huge cockroach on it, which was effectively identified by Emily.

We went hiking to the bird tower to catch the sunset, and the view was absolutely breathtaking. The journey there was breathtaking as well (literally), but I digress… The tower and ladder were a little shaky though which was kind of scary… I was physically exhausted and drenched in sweat, but I was so glad to have persevered.

At the bird tower!

After we returned, we had dinner — chick peas, fried cucumbers, and eggs. After dinner, I finally had my first presentation, which was my 30 minute topic lecture about Visual and Auditory Communication in Rainforest Animals. I was a little nervous, since this was the longest presentation I have ever done, but I think it went fairly well, and I’m glad to have it out of the way. I have my mammals taxon ID briefing presentation tomorrow though, so I’m excited/nervous for that.

Tomorrow morning, at 5 AM, a small group of us are planning to go to the bird tower to see the sunset. I’m going to try really hard to wake up, but we will have to see tomorrow. Stay tuned!

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Day 3: Project and… Bats?

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Hi Blog,

Today was day 3 of Belize, and our first morning at Las Cuevas Research Station! I didn’t get to hear it, but apparently some people were woken up at around 4 AM due to a calling from an ocelot! I wish I heard it, because I’ve been dying to see one of the cat species!! After breakfast, we devised a game plan for our first research project, with the research question of “how does the presence of manmade trails affect the biodiversity of vertebrates in the Chiquibul forest immediately surrounding Las Cuevas Research Station?”

For our research, the rest of our day consisted of setting up 14 camera traps — 7 on disturbed and 7 on undisturbed locations. For the undisturbed locations, Dr. Solomon took the lead with his machete cutting down any trees, vines, or other plants that were in the way as we walked into the forest. I got to place mine in the undisturbed portion of the forest which was a cool experience! In the following days, I think we will be observing what is captured on the camera traps to answer our research question.

Me setting up my camera trap!

Today was actually a day full of mammal sightings!!

At the beginning of our hike down the Monkey Tail Trail, around 10 AM, we discovered a big cat scratch mark on the ground — perhaps of a jaguarundi, jaguar, oicelot, or puma. It looked fairly recent based on how there were only a couple of leaves on top of the cleared dirt. Also, Dr. Solomon caught a distinct whiff of an animal — again possibly of a feline species. This was really exciting for me, because it made me realize that the cat species are actually in the forests with us, rather than being just a distant idea.

Around 10:50 AM, Dr. Evans spotted pinch marks from Honduran white bats! This was really interesting, as it was sets of evenly spaced holes/marks in a 10-leaved plant. We suspected it may have been from a family of these bats, based on how many of the marks were on the leaves.

 

Honduran White Bat pinch marks!

Then, right before dinner at around 6PM, we saw two agoutis lurking around the trees of the clearing, and it looked like hey were foraging around for food. I was at first confused on if it was a paca or an agouti, but then identified as an agouti after seeing that it was uniformly colored. It was so far away though that my camera could not capture it without it looking like a speck of dust. So sadly, no agouti pictures taken by me are available. 🙁

I’m really excited to see what the following days at the rainforest will look like as Day 1 at LCRS (Las Cuevas Research Station) has already been so informative and awesome!

With love,

Sohee

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You Bat-ter Believe it

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May 17, 2019

Per usual, my day started at 5:00 am bird watching. It was a clear morning and the birds we saw were absolutely spectacular. The forest came to life as the Plumbious Kite took its regular perch and parrots flew overhead, two even landed in a tree right in front of us. The Melodious Blackbirds hopped onto the ground and the Social Flycatchers were chirping away.  The highlight of morning was the sighting of two toucans. Their bright colors were absolutely stunning, with red and white tail feathers and a green eye ring. Another exciting event was the Plumbious Kite soaring down and catching an unfortunate moth.

 

After breakfast we devised an experiment utilizing pitfall traps, traps that an arthropod can fall into but not get out of. We’re comparing the nitrogen limitation, limitation of an environment to provide useable nitrogen to its organism, of the forest floor and the canopy as well as the arthropod species abundance and diversity. At each site we placed four vials, which were vials containing nitrogenous liquid in a tree and the floor and vials with just water in them. On the way we came across a shaft that led into a cave system right in the middle of the path! Looking down and imitating bat calls (kiss the top of your hand to create a high-pitched nose) we saw bats fly up almost out of the shaft. Since I’m the mammal taxon specialist, I tried to identify but to no avail. I couldn’t get a good picture and they wouldn’t let us me them long enough to identify them. They had light brown bodies and large dark brown wings and seeing them was absolutely amazing.

 

We returned to the station for lunch and then went to explore Las Cuevas Cave. The cave has a large entrance and is covered in bat guano. The ground is littered with Mayan Pottery, and there is a cenote (sinkhole exposing ground water). There, we had three presentation. The first was on Butterflies and Moths, the next was about Crickets, Katydids, and Grasshoppers, and lastly I gave my lecture on Cave Life. It was a very cool experience, especially to see a few things (like stalactites forming) that I had researched in real life.

After exploring the Mayan ruins above the cave and dinner, we ended the day with a night hike. We saw so many spiders and small critters that we hadn’t seen before and it was very eerie to hear all of the noises in the darkness.

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The Art of Spelunking (Day 5)

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I never truly appreciated the feeling of being clean until today. There’s one thing about coming back hot and sweaty after a hike, but it’s quite a different feeling returning from an afternoon of spelunking covered in a fine mixture of mud and bat guano.

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View from inside Las Cuevas cave.
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Wrinkle-faced bat inside Las Cuevas cave.

But let’s backtrack. Today’s tasks began relatively lightly by wrapping up our (inconclusive) cecropia experiments. The day’s primary activity was the exploration of the cave from which Las Cuevas gets its name (and water). The 9-chambered cave is the center of an ancient Mayan ceremonial site, with each of the rooms representing one of the nine layers of the Mayan underworld. The cave holds numerous Mayan structures and pottery, and even what appeared to be a human femur. I doubt I’ll be picking up spelunking for recreation anytime soon, but our exploration gave me a newfound appreciation for cave biology. We found two species of bats within the cave system, as we crawled on hands and knees through narrow passageways that opened into large caverns. I thought I was clean until the cave’s final test: a tiny chamber with low oxygen content, housing a peccary skeleton. Let’s just say I was in great need of a hot bath after that adventure.

Finally, we set up an experiment to test nitrogen deficiency in arthropods of the rainforest canopy. Once again, we utilized extremely sophisticated technologies to create pitfall traps for arthropods in the canopy and forest floor, taking advantage of our most accessible nitrogen source: urine. I was thankfully spared from urine collection, but the afternoon was dedicated to setting up pitfall traps along the Maya trail (not named after yours truly). Though there were no sightings today, the leaf-litter our traps were set in are a prime habitat for venomous snakes; the forest floor was thoroughly checked for species like the yellow-jawed tommygoff (Bothrops asper) before setting traps. I did however spot several anole species along the Maya trail, all of which moved too quickly to be identified.

All in all, day 5 of EBIO 319 is best summed up by the following statement by Dr. Scott Solomon, “We’re exploring the mammalian excretory system!”

2016

(Nakian) May 21: Cave x Urine x Ruin

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Today afternoon we travelled down to the nine stages of Mayan underworld. First the cave birds greeted us and ancient stairs made by the Mayans themselves led our way down. The muddy caught on our boots and the cave wall sparkled every time our headlight swept the embedded minerals. As the mud accumulated on our boots the great halls and tight entrances into another alternated. Bats glanced at our light from the holes dug over generations of their presence. We could see the cave entrance after overcoming the ninth chamber. On the journey back we entered a very tight opening where we ended up at where an unfortunate and lost peccary skeleton sneered at us. The poor animal must have been wandering in darkest dark until it died of starvation. The humidity generated from our own breath and apparently lowering oxygen level simulated the peccary’s death.

After returning from the underworld, we went to install our pitfall traps of our own urine. We set traps of urine set on the trunk of trees and on the ground, comparing the amount of bugs searching for sources of nitrogen. If the fraction of number of bugs in the urine trap over that in the control water trap in the canopy is higher than that of floor, it will count toward the hypothesis that nitrogen availability in the canopy is lower than that of forest floor.
In the process I caught some ant species. I am going to identify them tomorrow. One seemed like a species of Camponatus while the other was unsure. Judging by how I caught them so easily in the evening, these species seem active in that time. Also my ant catching skill seems to have improved.

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