Friday, January 27, 2012

January 23, 2012

Rise and shine, it’s paper time! On this day our lovely library research papers were due, and many of us needed to finish them up. Our topics ranged from forest policy to jaguars to coffee plantations, but all of them concerned conservation or sustainable land use in Costa Rica. We were supposed to evoke the style of a National Geographic or Discover magazine article and incorporate our own experiences from this trip…I’m sure Kathy will love every single one and give us all A’s ;) .
Besides working on our papers, we also needed to conduct field work for our research projects. I think we were all a bit more excited about our projects in Monteverde than ours at La Selva, since we had more input in the topics of our research this time around. Also, the weather was soooo beautiful (not hot, humid, sticky, and moist), and because we were in the mountains, we could enjoy stunning views while collecting data on the trails.

My research group studied bugs in the forest leaf litter to see if elevation and light gaps have an effect on the numbers of critters present. Originally our plan was to go through the leaf litter and identify each invertebrate down to its order, but we didn’t realize how difficult this would be! They were all so tiny and fast and there were wayyy too many leaves to examine in our 0.5 square meter plots. We ended up counting the number of critters on 50 leaves in each square we roped off, which was so much more manageable. We had a lot of fun venturing off the trail to find ideal sampling locations in shaded areas, gaps where fallen trees were letting in light, and at different elevations. My favorite invertebrate we found was an itty bitty snail (only about 3mm or so big!) that was booking it (at least for a snail) across its leaf.

The other groups’ projects were also pretty cool. One group measured the effects of wind speed on epiphyte (a type of plant that grows on another plant) load and growth of a family of trees in the elfin forest, so they had fun trekking off the trail to measure the height and diameter of trees. Another group traveled to a local coffee farm, examining coffee plants that were infected with a specific kind of fungus. Taking an entirely different route, one group created a survey and interviewed tourists, assessing their consumption of coffee, awareness of various certifications of coffee, and how this awareness impacts purchasing decisions.

Another highlight of the day was making multiple trips to the Hummingbird Café! They had several hummingbird feeders set up around their porch, and hummingbirds zoomed all over. I think the most popular item our group purchased from the café was the brownie – we must have all been going through major brownie withdrawal! Their coffee was also really tasty, and they made pretty designs in the foam on their cappuccinos. Going back to drinking coffee from the caf back at Olaf is going to be hard!
-Hannah