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Belize Day 5: Inspidering and Antastic

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It’s pitch black outside. You look up, and the stars illuminate the tree silhouettes and snake-shaped vines surrounding you. You flick on your headlamp, scan the ground, and see thousands of tiny, glimmering emeralds. Dr. Solomon tells you they are spider eyes, and the realization hits you: It’s a spider’s world, and you’re living in it. My new favorite hobby is night hiking.

Today, we saved the hiking for the evening and spent the morning learning about what really goes on at Las Cuevas Research Station, the site we are staying at as we study the rainforest. It is owned by Friends for Conservation and Development, a non-profit centered around environmental protection, but their work extends far beyond a single initiative. They started as a group of passionate teenagers who cherished the environment and wanted to protect it, and bloomed into an organization that hires rangers (forest monitoring), runs research stations, restores endangered species (including macaws, jaguars, game species, etc), maintains and protects cultural richness (ex. They protect Mayan remains in the caves), and help local communities. Their work and growth as a grassroots group is absolutely inspirational, and I now have my heart set on working as a ranger for them. I just need to practice carrying 80-lb weight bags places and train my knees for the steep inclines.

The FCD focuses the majority of its time and resources on protecting scarlet macaws. It is estimated that there are only 350 individuals in Belize due to extreme poaching. To protect chicks from poaching, FCD members extract chicks from the nest, raise them, and release them once they are more capable of defending themselves. We’re incredibly lucky to be staying in the only region of the Chiquibul Forest where they are found, and we see a couple fly overhead almost every day.


(Scarlet Macaw Feather – 05/20/25)

After lunch, we went on a hunt for leaf-cutter ant colonies–more specifically, the prized fungal gardens inside. I mentioned in an earlier blog post that leaf cutters are little gardeners who cultivate this fungus, which they eat by feeding it leaves and other materials. We wanted to see their rich harvests for ourselves.


(Fungal Garden with Queen Ant – 05/20/25)

In our search for ant hills, we set out to find both a young and an older, more mature colony. We examined how colony structures differed and changed with age. Right by the cabin, out in the open field, we saw a teeny ant hill, and Dr. Solomon started digging around the nest on the spot. New colonies are often found in open spaces or edge habitats (between the rainforest and open clearings) because the Queen ant needs to find cover asap to avoid predation, and these spaces are the most accessible. New colonies are started when a preexisting colony produces another queen, and this queen takes a chunk of fungus with her and flies high into the air to mate with a male. Once she’s fertilized, she’s set to lay eggs for the rest of her life. (She’s ___, meaning she only needs to mate once and can store the rest for the future). From there, she burrows into a new spot on the ground and starts cranking out eggs. The workers that hatch will continue digging new chambers until the hill is giant.

We walked down the trail to a massive ant mound the size of a shed aboveground that was fully mature and could have been anywhere from 15-25 years old. Underground, it easily could have been 3x more voluminous. We saw a ton of tunnels burrowing down from the surface and learned that the whole colony breathes as one unit; the tubes take in oxygen and exhale CO2.

Then, Dr. Solomon popped the question, “So do we want to rile up the ants first or start digging first? Either way, they’re going to come out.” Rile them up? These guys are no joke – they can reach the size of a thumb (from what I’ve seen) and have zinc-lined, vibrating saw-like pinchers that can draw serious blood. We all looked around at each other with big eyes, and Sam, our ant expert, volunteered to be our first digger. 30 seconds later, Sam had a battle wound (bite), and these massive guys started streaming out like a broken fire hydrant. We all started tap dancing to flick them off of our rubber boots, but with their intense pinchers, they latched on and began to chew through the rubber. In the meantime, Dr. Solomon bravely spooned some exposed fungus out of the colony. Fungus acquired, mission accomplished, and lesson learned – don’t disturb shed-sized ant hills.

IMG_7296 (1) (Ants Swarming – 05/20/25)

After a dinner watching the sunset from our cabin deck, we embarked on a night hike to see more of the incredible creatures that call this jungle home. We breathed slowly, listening to the sounds of the jungle at night. Our our way back, we had the unexpected pleasure of seeing Belize’s National Flower, the tiny black orchid (an epiphyte!), sitting on the tree out front of our cabin. Feeling fortunate and at peace, we ended the day lying on top of the picnic and gazing up at the stars, making shapes with the stars. There is so much life out there to cherish and discover.


(Black Orchid: Belize’s National Flower – 05/20/25)

 

Peace & Love,

Lily 🙂

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Day 6: Boiling in Belize

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Hi! Today is day 4/5 in the rainforest! And it was definitely a hot one! Today we got a special tour of the Las Cuevas Cave. We were shown the main chamber and you could see stairs winding down to a cenote built by the Maya. We were told the cave represented the border between the living and dead and was an entrance into the underworld. The cave was probably used for religious rituals the maya did. We were able to see remnants of charcoal and pottery from those rituals.

In the afternoon we collected our pitfall traps and analyzed the amount of species and what species fell into which vials. We found that the difference in the tree in the pee vs water vial was greater than the difference in the ground vials. This signified  greater nitrogen limitation further from the ground.

We then hiked to the bird tower for sunset where we got a great view of the rainforest as the sun was setting. Along our treks we saw a few beetle species including a long horned beetle!

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The Ant-Man Super Bowl: Leafcutter Nest Excavation

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May 20, 2025
Hello again! As you can tell from the title, today was yet another amazing day at Las Cuevas Research Station. The day began with some light birdwatching, during which we saw some flying macaws, a toucan, and a Northern Mealy Amazon parrot. These were very cool to see!
Our morning and half of the afternoon was filled with finishing up the Cecropia experiment and listening to presentations. Before I get into what we did with the second part of the afternoon, I’ll illustrate the results of our experiment. As you can see from the poster below, the question “was how do young cecropia trees defend themselves if they’re not colonized and protected by a colony of Azteca ants?” Unfortunately, our results were inconclusive. Due to limitations on time, we weren’t able to catch Orthoptera herbivores of the same species, so that factor was not standard, and we also had the problem of hydration of the leaves (we can’t know if the leaves were absorbing water, or how much they had at the time oof weighing, because we are in a field station with only one afternoon and one morning to devote to this project.) So, the results were inconclusive, but you can read our poster pictured below. (The poster was a collaborative effort; if you know me, you know that’s not my handwriting.) After the project was over, we had a presentation from the Rafael Manzanero, director of the Friends for Conservation and Development, which is a really cool Belizean NGO that manages the LCRS, Chiquibul National Park and Forest Reserve, and they defend it. They have armed rangers, filling the role that the government plays in the US. It was very interesting to hear from him. After that, I gave my Ants Taxon Briefing, Lily gave hers on Epiphytes, and Dyllan talked about plant-insect interactions. During those presentation, we also heard from Yasmini Manzanero, the FCD’s Cultural Heritage and Karst Expert, and she briefed us on the cave system we are to explore tomorrow.
After those presentations, we had the ant-man Super Bowl: we excavated leafcutter ant nests to find their fungal garden. This was truly exciting. First, we approached the young colony (~1 year in age, 1 entrance) which is in the clearing right next to Jane’s (LCRS Manager) cabin. This is an optimal location for a Leafcutter colony because they like forest edges. The edges provide easy access to fresh vegetation for their fungus, while also providing the queen easy access to get into the ground quickly. We began our excavation by digging next to the colony, because fungal gardens (which is where the queen is) aren’t usually underneath the colony entrance, but they’re off to the side. Excavating this way minimizes damage to the colony’s structure and garden. This was so fun, because Dr. Solomon pulled out the entire fungal garden on a large kitchen spoon. With the whole garden came the queen, which was also awesome to see. She was so huge, because she has to store her sperm for up to 20-25 years and she also has to store her fungus when she leaves the colony she’s from, so she had a lot going on. It was super cool to see her.
Once we had thoroughly explored the young colony, we approached the mature colony. The mature colony was ~x years old and had many entrances. We selected this mature colony because it was raised, meaning the fungal gardens would be easier to access. This colony presented a problem though: the many hundreds and thousands of soldier ants that swarmed as we excavated. This meant that everyone had to put their things far away, and continually stomp soldier ants off their boots so they didn’t chew through them. As the ant-man, I was excited to see the horde of ants flowing out of the nest like a mighty stream and I grabbed the shovel. I was mostly successful, but I did get one battle wound. This was quite a different wound, as it hurt in the moment but it faded quickly. It also bled a lot, which was concerning (and turned my stomach bc I do not like blood very much) but that also subsided quickly. All in all, it was a great ant-super bowl and I’m super proud to have been a part of the excavating. After the wounds, we found the fungus. This fungus was interesting because a) there was much more of it, naturally, and b) It had a different texture than the fungus of the young colony. I’d be interested to compare them in a lab.
Following dinner, we had our first night hike. We saw a rare Pauroque bird (one of the “heard not seen” birds,) but the coolest thing we saw was the leafcutter ant highway. During the day, you see a couple or even a steady stream of ants flowing on these highways. At night, this highway was PACKED. It probably looked like the Katy Freeway when they brought 45, 90, and 180 to Rice. It is pictured below.
Images:
Cecropia Experiment Poster (if you have seen me write, you know that I did not write this. It was a collaborative effort.)
Battle wound from Excavation of Mature Colony (Got bit by Soldier Atta cephalotes)
Young Colony’s Fungal Garden
Ant Highway During Night Hike
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Day 5: Presentations, leafcutter ants, night hike and more!

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We spent the morning going over the results of our cecropia tree experiments and making a poster to present those results to the instructors. The results were mixed—while some of the leaves did appear eaten, others actually seemed to have gained mass. We chalked this up to the leaves rehydrating in the containers, as there was also water inside for the herbivorous insects. It also seemed like the leaves from the young, uncolonized tree lost more mass, although difference was slight. This surprised me—I had assumed that, without ants to defend them, the young cecropia trees had developed some other defense mechanism. There were lots of factors we weren’t able to control for which added confounding variable, such as the species of herbivore and the age of the cecropia tree. It would also probably be better to sample more trees. We came up with a theoretical laboratory follow-up in which we grew cecropia trees and prevented one from being colonized, giving us more control over the conditions.

BIOS 319 students weighing leaves and recording observations.
Unpacking the herbivory chambers and recording observations
Working on the poster for the cecropia experiment.
Making progress on the poster!

We also were treated with a presentation from Rafael Manzanero, the director of FCD (Friends for Conservation and Development), the organization that manages oversees Las Cuevas. He told us about the different types of work FCD does, from resource management to research to protection. He also told us about some of the challenges FCD faces, particularly since Covid.

After lunch, we had student lectures and a presentation from Yasmini Manzanero, who does cultural heritage work with FCD. She went into more detail about the history of the caves as well as the cultural and natural wonders which can be found inside. FCD works together with the Belizean Institute of Archeology to document and manage the caves, and we learned about how that relationship works as well. It really showcased another side of the work being done in this place—the work of the karst team is so fascinating,

Later the afternoon, we set out to investigate leafcutter ant fungal gardens. Basically, leafcutter ants will bring leaves back to their colony feed a fungus which they then eat. Mature colonies can have tens or hundreds of fungal garden chambers. We first went to a young leafcutter and colony, probably just over one year old, and excavated the fungal garden. We hit it pretty quickly, and we were able to pull it out intact. It had the queen right on it, along with many workers. It was too young to have any soldiers, though. After inspecting it, we moved on to a mature colony. The immature colony was in the clearing with the research station, but to find an ideal mature colony we ventured down the road a bit. We wanted one that was raised so we wouldn’t have to dig deep to find the fungal garden. The mature colony was well-defended and after only a few strokes with the shovel the soldier ants came pouring out. We had to keep stomping our boots to shake them off. Eventually, though, we uncovered the fungal garden and pulled out a sample of the fungus. It was really interesting to see nests of such radically different sizes.

Dr. Solomon kneels down by an excavated leafcutter anthill and reaches in to bring out the fungal garden.
Dr. Solomon excavating the fungal garden of a small leafcutter ant colony.
Sam dogs a large leafcutter ant colony.
Sam works to excavate the large leafcutter ant colony.

We ended the day with a night hike. We did the Maya trail which goes in a loop, and we walked slow so we could see as much wildlife as possible It had been so dry that we were limited in what we were able to see, but there was still a huge diversity of insects that were super active. We also got to see two anoles and. One interesting thing we came across was some fake snakes (made of clay) being used for research purposes. By far the best part, in my opinion, was when we all turned our headlamps off and and stayed quiet for a minute to listen to the forest. It was so peaceful and the stars were beautiful! What a way to end our day.

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Cave + Urine Experiment + Coral Snake = 4.3 miles.

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I woke up to people commanding me to pee inside a tube. “50 mills in two tubes” they said. I beat everyone else’s pee in coloration, which I like to think may be indication I have the highest concentration of nitrogen in my urine. And that’s relevant because, Scott tells us, one of the crucial limiting nutrients of the the canopy in tropical rain forests. After about an hour of questions, discussion, and writing in our field notebooks, we narrowed in on what exactly this urine experiment was going to be.

General question: How does different levels of limiting nutrients, such as nitrogen, affect insect biodiversity.

Context: In nutrient-poor soils of the tropical rainforests, nitrogen is often a limiting factor of life. It is more limiting in the canopy.

Main Hypothesis: The species richness in urine traps of canopy will be higher than water traps of canopy. This differential is greater than the same type of differential found in the forest floor, suggesting that nitrogen is more of a limiting nutrient in the canopy than in the forest floor.

After 2 days, we will collect our traps and count the numbers of the insect species we have captured.
For more on our project, please check a later blog post, which will contain our findings.

Also, today I found a bee hive outside of the dining room, with many yellow-abdomen bees coming out. They had all the similar morphological traits of a bee I had on my taxon identification card, but these had white front feet. I will have to look through more identification literature to see which species this is.

EBIO 319 In front of Las Cuevas Cave

The other half of our daytime was dedicated to something that better resembled the night. Walking in complete darkness during our first cave exploration. Las Cuevas (spanish for ‘the caves’) caves, are unlit karst formations that resulted from acidic water cutting through limestone. After many years, a whole underground network of life has formed, including the fertilizing bats who power the cave ecosystem through their feces and the accidental venturers who decay inside after failing to find a way out. Guano, truly, is a a glorified name for bat shit. You know, when people say, “that’s some crazy bat shit”… Well, it turns out that a whole ecosystem inside of the Las Cuevas caves (and many other caves around wthe world) depend on guano, both those of bats, and those from crickets. Cave millipedes ingest and digest guano and without it would not be able to survive. I would like to say more, but the fact on the matter is that we do not konw enough. Life there has been unidentified to a large degree, comparable to the deep sea or even extraterrestial life.

Currently, many explorers in these caves are people who are daring and willing to take on the complete darkness and the scary unknowns that come with being in caves. We were told by Raphael, leader of the Friends of Conservation and Development (NGO in Belize), that “we know that each time someone goes into the cave they find a new species”. At the very least, someone ought to write a post-apocalyptic novel revolving around life in the caves. One of the last things we did in the caves was to use guano mud to write and draw on the cave wall. Having heard stories about the Mayan demise, it makes me wonder, when it comes to cave art, how much we, as a species, has evolved in leaving behind markers of our existence and what, if any, meaning can be derived from our symbolic representation after our species has either evolved or died out.

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Day 3: Surrounded by Green

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Blog Post #3

Day 3: Surrounded by Green

Written on May 17that 9:31 pm

 

DISCLAIMER: Las Cuevas was supposed to have internet—right now, it isn’t working. All LCRS posts from the rainforest will be posted after the fact!

On our first full day at LCRS, we started our first project! We were given a method (camera trapping) and were tasked with creating a question, testable hypothesis, and a full methodology. After much discussion, tweaking, and organizing, we decided to ask about human impact on mammal traffic. We measured this by setting camera traps in pairs—one on the trail facing the trail, the other off trail facing away from the trail. We hope to catch some great cat (like jaguar) shots!

With all the details figured out, we left for to set up the first three pairs. We went from the station, down Monkey Tail Trail, and turned onto Saffron Trail. This broad daylight hiking was different than yesterday—the sun rays glowed through the trees lighting up the forest canopy with all shades of green. Most notable canopy spotting today was a large termite nest in the Y of some branches; it had to be at least 5 ft in diameter!

I sadly did not spot any amphibians today—I think this is because it is the end of the dry season, and not that many rains have come yet. Also, most of the Belizean frogs are nocturnal and we’ve just been hiking in daylight or dusk thus far. The tree frog from yesterday was really a treat!

Somewhat related to amphibians are boa constrictors! We actually had the incredible opportunity to spot one in the wild while hiking off trail to set the camera trap. The boa was directly in front of a 30 ft wide leaf cutter ant pile, so we were all having a field day with this nature sightings. The snake, on the other hand, was very nervous but never lunged—it just followed any moving person with its eyes.

When we returned from our hike, we had a chance to shower then hear from the Director of Friends of Conservation and Development Raphael. He explained to us that (in a nutshell) his NGO is responsible for patrolling the border with Guatemala and other high-risk areas to protect the wildlife. All in all, today I learned to appreciate the rainforest, and even more, the colors and battles of the rainforest of today really made me appreciate being in the rainforest.