11 days late

Last thoughts in Costa Rica

Today was the last day with the whole group. We woke up from Thermomania (thermal spa we went to heated by volcanoes… highlights being covered in volcanic mud and playing laptag) all had breakfast together and hopped on the bus to San Jose. We stopped by the OTS office to fill out forms, eat lunch and receive T-shirts we each helped design (field guide to OTS - we each drew our favorite Costa Rican animal, I chose the wood stork and named it stellorka materna). We then headed towards Hotel Cacts, and went out shopping for breakfast supplies and some coffee to bring back home. Then 6pm came and the faculty decided to take us to a fancy Thai restaurant that they say only really good groups get taken to. The food was real good, especially the fried plantains with icecream. The whole night’s conversation was about the delight we receive from foods. mmmm

Then the moment came where we had to go back to the hotel and say goodbye to the faculty: Alex, Mau, Erika and JD. They told us that they have been impressed with our group dynamic… they haven’t seen a group quite as unified since 2000! And honestly I believe everyone here feels that way. Though there are definitely groups of friends, if you were to place two random people together it would work out just great. Everyone just seems to like everyone and for that I am so grateful. I remember the first day I arrived… I was the grand mystery. People had dreams about me, thoughts in their head of what I would be like, they believed I wasn’t coming and then suddenly I was here, just 11 days late. I was greeted with STELLLLLAA! You’re stella! ha lots of curious smiling faces eager to help me catch up.

I felt so welcome and I knew since then that this group was something special. 

I wake up at 3:30 am tomorrow to be taken to the airport. I’ll be with two friends from here heading first to Houston. We’ll be taking off at 6:59 am.

Chao Costa Rica,

PURA VIDA!

Here is a condensed version of our presentation on leafcutter ants Atta Cephalotes.

“It is the little things that rule the world” - E.O. Wilson

I would just like to say, even though our results are opposite from what we were expecting, the fact that they are opened up hundreds of other questions and definitely made me think a lot more and more highly of these hardworking females. Ants! 

The leafcutters are one of the most specialized of all the ants. They are the underground farmers who cultivate a fungus, Lepiotaceae, by harvesting fresh vegetation for the fungus to grow on which they bring back to their underground nest chamber. Less complex leafcutters let their fungus grow on dead insects and not strictly on fresh vegetation, they also do not have as many castes. The leafcutters we looked at were more complex, have the largest nests (size of school buses sometimes) that have hundreds of fungal gardens and dump chambers (for spent and contaminated fragments). It is a obligate symbiotic relationship, the ants and the fungus completely dependent on each other for survival. The larvae feed exclusively on the fungus and depending on the species the adults feed mostly on sap and supplement their diet with the fruiting fungi. 

They are colonial, and eusocial, there are physiological differences (one reproductive caste, the queen, and a nonreproductive caste, the workers). Among the worker caste there are many other subcastes differentiated by morphological differences that dictate task partitioning. The largest class (maxima) are the soldiers who guard the nest and clear the trails, the media are the workers who cut and bring back leaf fragments to the nest, and the minima, the smallest class may be the most important, they tend the brood and the fungal garden and help chemically mark the trails. They are also seen frequently outside of the nest “hitchhiking” on leaf fragments getting carried back to the nest by media workers. 

There are several theories as to why they hitchhike: parasitoid defense (phorid fly) for media workers, sap-feeding, conserving energy, marooned to the leaf, and leaf preparation (cleaning leaf of potential contaminants before entry to nest). We tested the last hypothesis but found that minima were spending more time on clean leaf fragments than on dirty, fungal-treated fragments. If interested as to why we think so… just ask me in person and I’ll go on and on. 

This place is full, it is heavy, it engages all of your senses and puts your hairs on rise … especially the ones in your nose. Peccaries are everywhere and there musky body odor smell is unlike anything else. You immediately know - PECCARY. The smell especially carries right after a rain. Other smells include those of sweet flowers, of monkeys, of our own sweat, stink bugs, the river, of coming rain, of gallo pinto, of mud. We can’t forget the sounds - so many frogs and toads calling and jumping, of screeching female owls, of scared peccaries, of of tucans, of passerines, of white bearded manakins making popcorn sounds in their lek, of sudden downpouring rain, of walking across the suspension bridge, bat squeaks, oradpendulas (sounds like dropping things into water), cicadas, blue jean frogs, and of a tree fall. And of visual the list is too long - though some highlights, not all pretty, include seeing (3 times) a tucan nest predating on clay colored robin nestlings. .  and the cherry tanagers trying to beat the tucan up, 100s the golden orb spiders on the trails, having to watch your step not trying to crush a blue jeans frog, brommeliads and epiphytes covering every available surface, bullet ants, army ants, but the most impressive. .  the 1000s upon 1000s of the top herbivore (eat 17% of forest vegetation), the leafcutter ant. The kinkajou, the howlers, and the crazy alien-like porcupine were all seen taking advantage of the suspension bridge. 

Hot, heavy, full of life and sweaty. 

La Selva

bugs bugs bugs

Dole Banana Plantation

(Pictures from Natalie) Bat catching and identifying. This night a bat researcher and some students set up mist nests along the open trails. The bats like the trails because they are open and easy to fly through. An hour after sunset bats had already been cut. We were able to see some vampiros, some frugivorous bats and some that specialize on piper plants. We were not able to handle them because most of us did not have a rabies shot. We were able to stroke its wind and touch its fur. While we were looking at the bats we heard something I had never heard before on a calm night - A TREE FALL! you could hear everything that was coming down with it, other trees, bushes, epiphytes and vines. It sounded like it was coming towards us and lasted for a good 10 seconds. It now is the beginning of the rainy season so more tree falls are expected.

Snorkeling! (Pictures from Natalie)

At Cabo Blanco, faculty guest Phil from Boston University was able to come over and stay with us for a week and to look at damselfish territoriality. Damselfish are algae farmers that have oval rock plots, weeding out unwanted algae and defending their territory against other herbivores. Phil is known for his work with sharks off of Johnston Island and for research looking at sound communication in fish. These are a couple things we were able to see when snorkeling. Things we didn’t catch on photo were: a big pink octopus, lobsters, and a spotted orange and black eel. 

Cabo Blanco

A nice sunset we had in between Monteverde and Cabo Blanco. We were all on the porch listening to Matt play ukulele and trying to decide what the cloud looked like. Road runner fish?