Today’s general agenda: project P —> mayan trail exploration —> cave expedition —> night hike 

“ It has to be a joke” – Michael at 7am breakfast

At 5am, I woke up bright and early to watch birds at Las Cuevas. To our delight, we actually spotted some toucans! These toucans have very bright beaks, and, luckily, through the telescope, we were able to capture them preening themselves. 

As we were eating breakfast, we were presented with vials and asked by Dr. Solomon and Dr. Shore to pee in the vials. Two vials each with 25mL of urine is what we were told. Drug test? Not quite! We were actually using our urine sample to test the diversity and nitrogen levels in the rainforest floor and canopy. I present to you.. project P! 

In short, nitrogen is an important resource for organisms to function properly, and nitrogen can come from any decomposing plants, animals, and other organic matter that you commonly find on the rainforest floor. Using our urine as a nitrogen source, we wanted to test  We set up these pitfall traps with either our urine or water around Las Cuevas to see which ones bugs and other organisms preferred. 

At night, I actually was able to observe ants hard at work. Leafcutter ants are specific ants that exhibit leaf cutting behaviors. They lay out this path on the ground, which is basically a highway for them to transport to leaves back to their nest. 

Brendan Wong

Las Cuevas, Belize

5/17/2019