Scientist Profile - Eric Fergaus of TEAM Network

Eric Fergaus is director of information systems at Conservation International's TEAM Network.  He wrote an insightful piece last week for the Huffington Post about how new technologies are allowing ecologists to efficiently analyze the large amounts of data they are now collecting.

Check it out...

"In today's globalized, technology-driven world, we are inundated with information on a daily basis. Faced with a deluge of data emanating from traditional news outlets, advertising and our social media networks, we must constantly sift through this mountain of data and evaluate which information is the most accurate, important and relevant to our lives.

Within the scientific community, things aren't much different. Technology has now enabled us to collect near real-time ecological information on scales ranging from a 1-hectare plot to an entire continent via space-, air- and ground-based sensors. Global, regional and national monitoring networks and observing systems can now use these technologies to capture information from more geographies and time periods than ever before."
Read more...

Common Paraque

Just when my last night hike was seeming less eventful than the first, Kenneth pointed out a common paraque on the forest floor.  He had to guide our eyes to it over several minutes then said he wanted to try and sneak up to it and pick it up.  If he was trying to impress the six lady science teachers I think it worked.  Check this out…

This bird can be seen along roadsides near fields or on the forest floor.  If you sweep your flashlight along the ground you’re likely to see the reddish glow of their eyes.  It calls out loudly at night and its sound reminded me of the whoop-pir-will, another in the nightjar family that we hear when out camping in Wisconsin.  

Scientist Profile - Mike Wells and the Band-backed Wrens

Mike Wells says he makes birds fight for a living.  He became interested in the social behavior of animals after taking a course in college on primates and another on behavioral ecology.  In an interview he said, "You see spectacular forms of cooperation in many populations of animals" - (i.e. army ants).  He is now studying the cooperative breeding behavior of a Costa Rican bird species where there is a dominant pair that breeds while the rest of the 4-12 member family does not.   They stick around sleeping together in a dormitory nests and helping to support the offspring by foraging for food and defending their territory. 

This type of indirect reproduction is fairly common in nature - it is mostly seen in the Hymnoptera (wasps, ants, and bees).  It's called kin selection and it refers to strategies in evolution that favor the reproductive success of an organism's relatives, even at the cost of the organism's own survival and/or reproduction.  Fascinating research! This behavior is less common in other animal groups but Mike is interested in how and why this type of kin selection evolved to varying degrees in different wren species of the Campylohynchus genus.

Jen and I woke up at 5am to meet him and his assistant as they attempted to net and band one of these wrens in a local family but he had no luck.  He thinks they were on to him.  In the video you might be able to tell that he's using a recording device to play a distress call then you hear the family make their own distress call, back and forth.  So he's stressing them out, getting them in fight mode so they'll fly toward him and get caught in his net.  By banding one of their legs they are easier to track and study.  He did manage to net a Golden-hooded Tanager, one of the prettiest birds I've seen here :)  After a little wrestling with the net and wings it was set free.

And he showed us a Montezuma's Oropendula nest that had been accidently dismantled as one of the owners was attacking an intruder.  Only one egg inside :(  

Our ECO Classroom Project Presentation - Chicago Northwest

ECO Classroom - Chicago Northwest on Prezi

My team....

Mantled Howler Monkeys

Notice anything strange in this picture?  ....if you guessed my worst nightmare you're right.  I often bore my friends with all of the things I'd rather do, or eat, or have than a bot fly larvae living inside of me.  I even refuse to show my students video of bot fly extractions during my weekly Strange Behavior videos.  This poor fella kept scratching what looked like at least three of them.  That's all I'm saying about the bot fly.

This is a Mantled Howler Monkey, one of 15 species of this type (genus) of New World monkey .  From Mexico to Ecuador there are three subspecies of the Mantled Howlers. I think the ones we see here are the Golden-mantled Howler monkeys.  They are differentiated by skull shape with their northern cousins and fur color with their southern cousins.  They feed mainly on young leaves so don't get a lot of calories and try to conserve energy by resting a lot.  These monkeys also have a low-pitched howl or grunt to help them locate other troops or to communicate disturbances, another energy-saving adaptation which prevents them from having to move around too much.

Howlers eat leaves, fruit, and flowers but manage to avoid dangerous plant toxins like alkaloids and cardiac glycosides by focusing on sampling small quantities of younger leaves with lower concentrations and by learning to recognize and find the safer trees.  They are thought to create mental libraries and maps to help them distinguish between these closely related species.   Kenneth Glander found that howlers will avoid the leaves of 146 Madero negro trees while eating from the only three without the toxins.  He hypothesized that the evolution of higher intelligence in primates may have been sparked by this need for this complex discrimination of food sources.

They seemed to be pretty indifferent to our presence but apparently are really good at using humans for defecation target practice.  : /  

To the top of Volcan Barva...

At almost 3,000 meters in elevation, the top of Volcan Barva is a different world.  Joanna from TEAM Network took us up to collect biodiversity and carbon storage data here.  They have subplots set up where they collect vegetation and camera trap data four times per year.  They're really good about showing us exactly how they do their work.  Ten of us got the full experience with an extremely nauseating 4WD ride up an almost impassable road.  Here you find less biodiversity, a cooler temperature, and surprisingly more above-ground biomass according to our calculations (we'll ask Joanna about this - could be due to our small sample size?).

Otter501

Otter 501 is a story about a stranded sea otter pup, an adventurous young woman that rescues her, and her new passion for understanding the species and their struggle to survive.

 It's a very inspiring story and we were lucky to get an early screening of this film and then Skype with the actress/biologist who starred in it.  She was asking for feedback about how they might expand teacher resources associated with the movie and discussed her hopes for creating a database of nature video clips so that students can learn to create their own documentaries.  I want to make my own movie too!!

It's not available yet for purchase, but we can book a screening at our school or nearby theater...  Anyone interested?