Just thinking about science and why I do it, I really liked this article:
Of course scientists can communicate
….especially I liked that we are apparently “divinely intoxicated” by science, haha, that’s easy in this department! And “…science, don’t you see, is really about uncertainty”! Awesome, yes, just like life in general!……..do I seem drunk?
Yay, small progress!
OKOK, after these success stories, I have to mention that all my experiments are running now! Nowhere near to beeing completed, but running. I think that’s worth a blog entry too, ey? 🙂 And of course this was only possible with the help of Pitilla’s AMAZING frield crew: Helen, Lisa and Robin! The girls saved me with their never-ending willingness to sort bugs, fabricate nets and cook dinner for the over-worked weary wet postdoc. Thanks so much!
An ant-lover’s reply
How can you not LOVE ants???? OK, they do bit, it’s nasty, hurts and itches. They crawl into any kind of food, no matter how well you thought you sealed it against them. They do occupy and fiercely defend some of our best bromeliads.
But the again: they are AWESOME! How on earth can they find our food within minutes of putting it down on the table? How DO large ants get into a tightly sealed honey bottle?
And no one who has seen a procession of leaf cutter ants carrying flowers through the forest can seriously hate ants. The most amazing o f all ants, however, must be army ants. They excite the whole forest like a visit by the pope. Small insects try to run, hop, scuttle away by the millions, birds flock to the site, munching up the poor little powerless critters while chanting and chatting and attracting more opportunistic birds and poo-eating butterflies.
And army ants are fast. Man, watch out, they can probably outrun you (at least after a month of Pitilla food). The most amazing ant event occurred yesterday (only briefly mentioned by Robin below): the ant war! Army ants (Robin’s irritation bin number 7) encountered a swarm of tiny ants (number 3) moving house on the deck of the station. War broke out in Petrona’s slippers. The battle was fierce, with large army ants biting small ants to death and carrying them and their pupae away in no time. But the little ones did not give up. They fought back like the bravest of all soldiers and the army ants eventually gave up (or had enough food for the day). After 20mins of super-action, everything disappeared within a few seconds and all that was left was 2 dying army ants…..what an event. (Note: this is not at all related to today’s Remembrance day or to Nicaraguans preparing to invade us only 10kms away, nor do I in any way support the glorification of war!). But it was SOOOOO exciting!
Some of my best Pitilla times were ant times.
So I forgive the ants their annoyingness and deeply admire their awesomeness.
Stand back, I’m going to try science!
Not only is the Costa Rican life pretty sweet – work actually gets done too! My two experiements (Leaf packs to measure decomposition rate, and communities to measure effects of diversity on predation and decomposition) are all up and running! I’ve claimed nearly every bromeliad within a 1 km radius of the station to stick experiments in. Now back to searching for more critters so I can replenish things in 2 weeks.
I was going to include a picture of my experiment, but it actually looks identical to the header photo of this blog! A common site here at Pitilla – bromeliads with plastic tubes with mesh hats sticking out of them. Field ecology is weird.
ALSO – I’m very curious about what is happening back in Vancouver! Have Jana and I suddenly become the sole members of the Srivastava lab?? Where are the posts from home?
Jungle musketeers
Believe it or not: we made it to Pitilla!! The 5 Srivastava lab musketeers are safe and happy in the jungle! Been running around in the forest all day, looking at things and awing and things. We saw an amazing army ant swarm with amazing ant birds all around it! I couldn’t stop jumping up and down in excitement! Right now, the big lab mum is cooking dinner for us while we are watching the sun go down behind the volcanoes. Life as a scientist…..magnifico!