June 27- Spider Monkeys and Aggressive Ants

As you may remember from my previous post, we had quite the storm last week that knocked down a lot of trees on the island.  One of those trees fell with a V in its branches around one of my study nests- the site itself is okay, but I have to climb through a fallen tree to get to it.  Some of you may guess where this is heading.  I made it through most of it despite the fact that it was a slippery, shifting, fallen tree.  And then, when I was almost through, my foot caught on a branch and my shoulder hit the Azteca nest as I stumbled.

Azteca are extremely aggressive, especially when anything comes near their colony.  Unsurprisingly, they were not happy to be disturbed.  I leapt away as quickly as I could, but I already had thousands of ants all over me.  One Azteca bite is annoying, but not too painful.  Dozens of simultaneous bites as hundreds of ants go down your shirt, up your neck, and into your hair is a different story.  I ended up having to rip off my shirt and throw it over a tree, and then spend the next fifteen minutes removing angry ants before I could continue.  My ant-infested  backpack was a lost cause- I carried it on a stick until I reached a fork in the trail that I knew I would pass on my way back, and left it on a tree.  Luckily (or unluckily) we got a major rainstorm that morning- it soaked me, but removed most of the ants from the pack by the time I came back for it.  I was quite the sight when I finally limped back into camp an hour late, soaking wet, covered in mud, and carrying my backpack as far from my body as possible.  

One highlight of that day- I saw an anteater!  I was delighted- it was definitely on my list of things that I wanted to see this summer, but they can be difficult to spot since they are arboreal and nocturnal.  I got lucky, and saw it as it was climbing into a tree to sleep.  One bright spot from my ant-related delay!  My camera was still sitting in the ant-infested backpack, but I ran back up the trail to get it.  I also had some amazing spider monkey sightings the day before.  

June 22- Storm

Sunday was certainly an adventure this week!  It started out as a normal morning- I had gone out by myself to a nearby trail to perform an experiment with some Atta leafcutter ants.  I'm trying to determine whether they react to various Azteca chemical signals, since leafcutter ants tend to avoid trees with Azteca nests in them.  I'm testing how they respond to Azteca refuse or nest material with dead Azteca as opposed to plain dirt, which means I find ants, set up the experiment, and film for an hour to analyze later.  My current setup utilizes a gopro, some PVC pipe, and plastic dog food bins, which I think finally qualifies me as a real field scientist.
I spent the morning happily finding an experimental setup that worked (I've been trying different things without success for a week) and filming ants.  Around 10:30, I noticed that it was starting to get cloudy.  I ignored it- we get storms basically every day, and most aren't too severe.  It can be an hour from the first thunder to the start of the rain, and almost every storm that I've experienced here starts extremely lightly.  There hadn't been anything too major on the radar.  Since I was finally getting good data, I figured that I would head back towards the lab once it started sprinkling, and be back by the time the real rain started.  As you can probably guess by the fact that this incident is getting its own blog post, things didn't work out that way.  Around 11, the forest suddenly got nighttime-dark.  The rain started suddenly, along with a howling wind.
Word of advice: if conditions ever reach a point where you start to feel chilly in the jungle, leave the jungle immediately.
In the time that it took me to turn of the camera and put my stuff into my bag, it was pouring rain.  When I detoured back a minute later to grab something I had forgotten, so many branches were falling that I had my hands up over my head.  The noise was unbelievable- pouring rain, branches and trees cracking, howler monkeys freaking out, booming thunder.  There was a ridiculous wind in the understory of the forest (something that really isn't supposed to happen in jungles).  I wish I could have gotten a video of the awe-inspriring scene, but I was a little too busy trying to avoid getting hit by any falling trees.  I learned exactly how fast I could run back to the dining hall (the closest building to the start of the trail).  It was faster than I thought.  The long staircase at the end of the trail that normally gives me such issues goes much faster when you take the steps at a sprint, two at a time.
Luckily, I had been working close by, so I was indoors by the time most of the trees started falling.  Groups that had been working further out had much closer calls- several people were very close to falling trees.  Several PhD students say it was the worst storm they've ever seen here, and one of the most frightening ones they;d ever experienced.  It only lasted about 10 minutes, but there are huge trees down all over the island.  The following pictures are all from a walk that afternoon when we tried to determine how many of my study sites had been destroyed (answer: four, potentially five).  The tree that I had been watching sway in the wind was on the ground inches from where I had been standing.  Getting places on the trails has certainly been an adventure this week (some of them are basically unusable- it took us 45 minutes to go 700 meters meters at one point)

June 18- Yes, that is a crocodile under the bridge/Panama City Part 2

Last week, Annika (the other intern on my project) and I had a chance to spend the whole day exploring Panama City.  We took the 6:30 water taxi from BCI to Gamboa, and then spent a while wandering the area by the canal in search of the Saca Bus stop.  (We discovered 45 minutes later, upon getting on at a stop 3 kilometers away, that the bus will just pull over any time it sees people on the side of the road.  Good to know).  Getting to the bus stop involved crossing the most nerve-wracking bridge ever here.  I do NOT enjoy driving over it when we take STRI shuttles to and from the city.

Yes, that is just a line of wood planks for cars to drive along.  Yes, there is no sidewalk and we had to press against the railing whenever a car went by.  And yes, that is a crocodile under the bridge (shoutout to Annika for the picture). The bridge is in a constant state of construction that seems to be necessary to keep it from collapsing into the canal.

The bus took us to the Albrook Mall, the largest mall in the Americas.  It makes the King of Prussia mall look small!  We had a fun morning shopping (and in my case, delighting over having a doughnut for the first time in three weeks), before taking a taxi to Casco Viejo.  Taxis in Panama are definitely an experience- they don't have meters, so you need to negotiate a price (in Spanish) with the driver before you get in.  My favorite offer was 'four dollars and a kiss'.  

We had a great time wandering the historical areas and streetside markets of Casco Viejo.  We saw an incredible old church- built in the 1600's!  Annika took some great pictures.

We eventually ended up at the waterfront, where we got some great views of a storm rolling on over Panama City (said storm trapped us in a restaurant for over an hour- at least there was a soccer game on!)  We met up with the rest of the BCI group at the Smithsonian's facilities in Panama City later in the afternoon for a research talk, and then all went out to dinner that night.

June 15- Barbour Point

My most common hiking route is Thomas Barbour trail, a path through an area of mostly secondary-growth forest where Azteca nests are common.  If you remember the picture of the refuse collection bucket from last week, I have four of those set up along the trail at different nests.  I check them all and collect the refuse every 3-4 days, so I spend plenty of time on the trail.  My normal walk takes me about two kilometers away from the dorms (the first kilometer or so of which is up a very steep hill) but today the other intern and I went all the way to the end of the trail (about 3 k each way) to look for army ants for a project and to see the view of the canal at the end of the trail.  It was a beautifully clear morning after a day of rain yesterday, and the views were fantastic.  The clay 'beach' that we were on is normally underwater; however, due to construction in the canal and a severe drought caused by last year's El Nino, it's currently well above water level.  We had a great time taking pictures- the only concern is crocodiles, which are fairly common in the area.  We tried to have one person keeping an eye out at all times ("I'm about to turn my back to the water to take this picture, so shout if you see a crocodile coming")

June 11- Forest

I've been getting to explore a lot more of the island over the past few days as more of our projects start kicking off.  It's amazing how much the composition of the forest can vary over such a small island.  I do most of the work with the Azteca nests along Thomas Barbour trail.  That trail is all secondary growth forest (much of it was farmland or rangeland until the canal was built, so the trees are less than a hundred years old).  The undergrowth is noticeably thicker, and there are lots of palms.  It's also in a lower area, so it tends to be wetter.  We've recently started doing more work in and around BCI's famous 50 hectare plot, where every tree is identified and measured every few years (hundreds of thousands of trees).  This area is mostly old-growth forest, and is also higher and a bit dryer.  There are lots of huge, beautiful old trees tere!
We set up 80 marked plots right outside of the 50 hectare plot the other day to receive various nutrients or metals as part of an experiment to study their impact on invertebrates.  Unfortunately for us, we discovered right before we went to treat the plots that we were too close to the 50 hectare plot to be allowed to use one key metal treatment.  Knowing that it would take a long time to set up the plots the next day, Annika (the other intern on the project) and I decided to try to run and grab the marker flags as the afternoon thunderstorm was starting (and by run, I mean we actually did make an exhausting jog up almost kilometer of steps to get to the highest part of the island.  I was quite happy to reach the flat plateau near the plot).  We got soaked when the skies opened up just as we were reaching the plot, but it was definitely a great adventure!  The howler monkeys were as loud as I've ever heard them, and almost directly over us- really incredible.

June 9- Panama City

I've gotten to go to Panama City twice this past week- once for orientation with the other REU students (all of whom arrived on June 5), and once for the weekly Tuesday seminar.  I have really enjoyed getting to see more of the city!  On Monday I got to see a lot of STRI's facilities in Panama City (especially impressive is the Earl S. Tupper Tropical Sciences Library- it began on BCI in the 1920's before being moved to the city, and contains an immense volume of information on tropical biology.  A few books are incredibly rare- we saw one where only five copies exist in the world!)  That afternoon we saw the STRI marine labs in Naos, an island just off the coast of Panama City.  A fun day!  I was also delighted to finally get to meet the other REU students.

On Tuesday we heard an interesting talk from a visiting scientist, and then the whole REU group went out for dinner.  Casco Viejo (the historic part of Panama City) is quite close to the Smithsonian's facilities there, and is incredibly beautiful!  I'm looking forward to getting to do some more exploring there this summer.  There is an interesting and surprisingly seamless blend between historic buildings and newer construction.  There are tons of window boxes with lush tropical vegetation- I am definitely a fan.

And the boat ride to and from Gamboa is always great.  You get some incredible views of the canal no matter which boat you're taking- mist-shrouded mountains in the early morning, a bright, clear sky over lush green forest in the early afternoon, swirling storm clouds rolling over the mountains near dinnertime, and the lights of buoys and passing container ships and the stars at night.

June 6- Howler Monkeys

Yesterday was my second solo hike (and the first one in which I managed to get onto the proper trail and visit all of the study sites that I was supposed to- slow but steady progress on this whole "sense of direction" thing).  It was a clear and sunny afternoon, which meant that it was brutally hot, but the forest was stunning.  The jungle truly feels like another world.  The trees are enormous, and there are an incredible variety of them.  Vines and lianas are everywhere.  The forest teems with life, and you can easily tell that what you're seeing is only a tiny fraction of what's out there.  I was almost done my 5 km loop checking on ant nests when I spotted a group of howler monkeys feeding!  I spent almost 20 minutes just standing there watching them eat fruit from a nearby tree- it was truly incredible!

June 4- Ants!

It's been another busy few days here, with lots of experiment setup.  My project for the summer focuses on Azteca ants, and how the refuse from their nests has a wide variety of impacts to the forest ecosystem.  Of course, to be able to study this, I need to have refuse from the nests.  Jane (the awesome graduate student acting as my mentor this summer) has worked on similar projects before, so she showed me how to rig buckets under several good nests.

I made the rookie mistake of standing with my shoulder too close to a vine near one nest.  Big mistake.  I spent the next half hour trying to pick off biting ants crawling up my neck, in my hair, and in my shirt.  I will be more wary of the vines next time.  At least Azteca bites aren't very painful.  Their nests are incredible- they can be huge!  

Today was the first day since I've been here that it hasn't rained.  It means that it was hotter, but the view over Gatun Lake and the canal in the sun is beautiful!

June 1

It's been a busy few days here!  The lab that I'm part of has two major research focuses- Azteca ants and their impact on nutrient cycling in the tropical forest, and how antibiotics or other compounds impact invertebrates in the leaf litter.  I've spent several days catching millipedes and isopods for an antibiotic experiment, which means lots of hours digging through fallen leaves near the trail.  There have been some interesting sightings, including the poison dart frog pictured below, lots of types of ants and spiders, and a tiny scorpion!  Unfortunately, chiggers (tiny biting insects) also enjoy the leaf litter- I have 72 bites on my ankles at the moment.  But the experiment is going well!

I got a chance to go into Panama City yesterday, which was wonderful!  I spent the first few hours working out issues with my insurance paperwork (I had a good deal of paperwork for the American and Panamanian governments, so I suppose that I shouldn't be surprised that there was a problem somewhere).  Afterwards, I got to explore the city with some other students.  We were in Casco Viejo, Panama City's historic district.  It's beautiful- lots of old buildings and carts set up along the street.  I'll try to bring my camera along next time!  Getting to the city involves half an hour on a boat and 45 minutes on a bus.  It's a cool trip- you get to see a lot of the mountains and tropical forest, and lots of the big container ships on the Panama Canal!