Saturday, January 14, 2012
Today marks the first of four full days spent at La Selva Biological Station. Home to many researchers, as well as traveling college students like ourselves and some tourists, La Selva is one of the most studied areas in all of the tropics- an average of 240 scientific papers are published per year on research conducted at La Selva!
Purchased in 1954 originally for experiments to improve natural resource management, it was then sold to the Organization for Tropical Studies in 1968. Sitting on about 1,500 hectares, it is an important biological corridor between sea level and the volcano Barva, which ensures elevational diversity. (in the tropics, much of the species diversity is due to changes in elevation) La Selva sits at about 35m above sea level and receives ~ 4m of rain per year, which defines it as a ‘tropical wet forest’. There are over 50 km of trails, and Saturday morning we got to explore at least a few kilometers of them with two very knowledgeable guides.
Breaking into two groups after breakfast, we headed out into the rainforest, with our field notebooks, binoculars, and clompy boots in tow. Well, mine were at least quite clompy. Our guides had amazing skill in picking out animals that a moment ago you would swear weren’t there. A two-toed sloth and her baby, iguanas, poison dart frogs, centipedes, termite nests, bullet ants, hummingbirds, toucans, flycatchers, trogons, manekins, (those last two are bird species), two different bat species, the list goes on and on!
Here are some numbers to illustrate just how species-rich La Selva is:
-over 2,000 plant species
-over 500 ant species
-over 400 bird species
-over 350 tree species
After breaking for lunch we headed out again in two groups to continue on different trails. I am continually amazed by the sheer size of plants here, leaves as long as I am tall, huge hulking lianas (woody vines) that drape themselves over trees, bromeliads growing on trees that are at least 3 feet tall! I found myself having a hard time watching the ground, I was so absorbed in staring up at the amazing view above me. Even when it started to rain, we could barely tell, the canopy is so dense above us it functions like a very green living umbrella. When stopping to take a quick break overlooking the river, my group saw a caiman below! Thanks to the ever-present binoculars, we got a good look.
Halfway through our afternoon hike, people started to feel not so good. By late afternoon half of our group was nauseous, including our fearless leader, Kathy, and our wonderful guide from CATIE, Vanessa. Thanks to a bus ride to the local clinic by our bus driver Carlos who went above and beyond his call of duty, those that were sick received the appropriate medication, and by the next morning the Tropical Ecology students are once again ready for adventure, plus or minus some bud and bugs.
Paige
