Community Ecology in Mesocosms
The end of the workshop has come, let the collaborations begin! We have learned a lot in the last few days (for example that ants grow bromeliads professionally in French Guiana and that Argentinian bromeliads look beautiful with under a blanket of snow). And I am sure we will do the most awesome joint analyses and global experiments ever. Thanks everybody for making this workshop a big success!
Foto: Olga Martinez
In time for the New Year, we have completed sorting the mite samples for our collaborative experiment on regional biodiversity and resilience. This means that we can start getting some answers by data analysis! It also means I can start sorting the samples from my Masters research! This is all very exciting news. To celebrate this change of focus with the New Year, I would like to share some photos of some interesting new species that we have added to our mite library through the collaborative experiment. Please enjoy.
Tiger Symphypleonid Collembolan
Fairy-like Arthropleonid Collembolan
Fat Female Mestostigmatid Mite
Primitive Oribatid Mite
Crazy Leafy-Legged Prostigmatid
Pretty Pink Bdellid Mite
-Gennifer Meldrum, January 9, 2011
Starting today, we are hosting bromeliad scientists from all over the world in Vancouver. How exciting! Welcome everybody! Let’s have a lot of fun (and do a bit of work at the side, too). Check out this amazing webpage by Alathea, the master of media and lab communications. Go bromeliad go!
Ever felt frustrated by the slow (or non-existent) progress we are making in saving this planet??? Just go and visit the Bosque Eterno de los Ninos in Monteverde, Costa Rica. Children all over the world collected money and bought a huge piece of rainforest to save it for the future. It is incredibly beautiful and wild. Shows you that little people can do big things by going many small steps. Just like the army ants I just encountered in this very forest (and that helped me to about 5-8 new bird species within 5 minutes!!!). So conservationists out there: don’t despair, we are going to do it! And now go and put some money into those children’s collecting boxes!
Here I sit in Liberia, on my last day in Costa Rica. That means that field season #1 of my PhD is done! 8 weeks and 2 successful experiments later.
I think sometimes that I must be due for a disaster. (Not that I want to jinx myself by saying it…) The general impression of grad school is that your first field season is a write off. It’s a trail run so that when everything fails and you end up with nothing at the end, you’ll know how to fix it next time. So far I have yet to have said “trial field season”, because everything has gone more or less smoothly and I always come out with some kind of data.
Lets just hope that the people with successful field seasons are just less vocal about it. So, all my inverts are counted, all my leaves are weighed, all my data is inputed and next on the agenda is putting it together in some recognizable form for our upcoming Bromeliad Workshop, and prepping for field season #2!
I leave for Brazil in 2 short months, thanks to the rest of the lab who has been able to plan while I’ve been hiding out in Pitilla!
That’s it until Vancouver! Pura Vida!