I've been seriously slacking on blogging, but what with the move to the Galapagos, my classwork, and my REU applications, I haven't really had much time for typing. To make up for it, I'm going to post the contents of my field journal, the last assignment for my first class (the one in Quito). It's long and pictureless, but it does at least give a fairly thorough description of our three field trips, as it was meant to be a personal reflection on our experiences with them. At some point, I'll actually get around to putting up photos. For now:
Our first field trip to Papallacta blew me away, almost literally. The cold, windy, misty, and muddy conditions in the super-paramo were a combination unmatched by any of my prior experiences and for a little while, at the very highest elevations, I thought we might blow right off the side of the mountain. Other than the mud, though, I loved stepping off our tour bus into such a surreal environment, particularly since the mist isolated our group so that it seemed as if the world ended twenty feet away from us.
The landscape was rocky, with the flora consisting of tiny plants that barely rose above the surface of the soil, such as the ground rosette. The rosette plants are so named due to the way their leaves all come off the stem at a single point, in a circular pattern. Their small size was an adaptation to the harsh temperatures and wind on top of the mountain—3.5 degrees Celsius with 60-70 kph gusts when we arrived. Most of the plant is underground where it is warmer or just above the ground, where it is still more insulated than it would be if it grew tall like a plant in lower elevations. One of the few plants we found in the super-paramo that grew more than an inch or two above the ground was the cushion plant, a hard green dome. The cushion plant grows in the same fashion as a coral, with layers of new individual plant rosettes growing on top of dead layers of past plant material. Although the plants are raised off the ground, they still receive insulating effects from their tight clustering and the dead material underneath the outer layer.
While hiking, we were told that we were in fact on South America's continental divide, which surprised me since Ecuador is so far west. Thinking about it, though, I realized that it simply spoke to the magnitude of the Amazon basin and the incredible size of the Amazon river watershed, since all the water in northern South America other than that in the strip of coast and Andean slopes to the west of us drained through the Amazon to the Atlantic. While we were in the Amazon, I asked where the “Amazon” is actually considered to start and was told that most definitions had it beginning at about 500-800 m on the slopes of the Andes. I had no idea that its influence was so large.
As we continued our hike, we passed out of the harsh super-paramo into the milder grassland paramo, and a distinct altitudinal gradient became apparent. As we descended from the clouds, the temperature increased and the wind subsided, and we noticed a corresponding increase in the size of the plants on the slopes around us. As its name implies, the grassland paramo is primarily inhabited by tussock grasses, small plants that form tufts on the ground. In contrast to the cushion plant, tussock grasses achieve their cold resistance by having layers of dead plant material surround green, living blades of grass at the heart of the plant. When viewing a slope covered in them, the hills have a yellowed color because only dead material is visible. We stopped for lunch on the shores of one of the numerous beautiful alpine lakes in the paramo and discussed some of the issues involved with Ecuador's water use. Ecuador's water supply is entirely dependent on the water present in the Andes and the consumption risks damage and deprivation in the paramo region. Likewise, the region is also at risk of harm due to its use by Ecuador's poor—often indigenous people—as an area to keep thin, mangy cattle that can be sold as street food in dire circumstances when the family's other resources have run out. This use generally involves burning large swathes of the dry grass to regenerate new growth for the cows to feed on, and the diversity of plants in areas that have been burned is noticeably lower. Often only pioneer species of grass, the first to recolonize the area after a burn, are present in significant quantities.
Near the lake, we also encountered plants with gobs of mucus pooling at their meristems. We were informed that this was yet another way plants protect themselves from the cold—in this case, the mucus insulates the newly sprouted leaves. Because it requires so much moisture, though, the plant is only able to grow near a lake, and they are only found in certain areas. As we continued our descent, we passed into the sub-paramo region, and plants such as the giant rosette and even small trees became more common. The giant rosette, similar to the ground rosette, has all of its leaves emerging from one point on the stem, which may be either the top or the bottom. In the former case, the leaves grow on top of a dead biomass accumulation, similar to the cushion plant although with only a single, gigantic rosette. Giant rosettes with the leaves on the bottom produce a single towering stalk flower, and flower only once before withering.
The trees that we found in the sub-paramo we small and there were only two varieties, although both formed patchy forests. Interestingly, the trees in each forest were draped in epiphytes, other plants that grew on their branches, sometimes forming moist green mats maybe 8 cm thick. These plants were to become a common theme during our later two field trips in Maquipucuna and Tiputini, where they were abundant on every tree.
Our descent to Maquipucuna also began in mist, this time in the cloud forest above the region housing the Maquipucuna lodge. We stopped the bus to check out a view and some plants and the mist and drizzle made me a little worried that I wouldn't be able to use my dSLR much during the trip. Fortunately, we made it out of the cloud forest into the lower montane forest and Maquipucuna was well within my camera's moisture-toleration zone.
Immediately upon arriving at the lodge, we were surrounded by hummingbirds attracted to the feeders set up by the lodge staff. We had been told that there were myriad bird species in the area, but arriving to a whole host of beautifully-colored hummingbirds was really enchanting. I spent most of our first lunch (soup with popcorn) jumping out of my seat to go take more photos. In the afternoon of our first day, we went on a short hike where we had to investigate various aspects of the forest (e.g. understory density) as we went and report back about them to the group. The plants we passed had some of the largest leaves I'd ever seen. We also ate bananas straight from the tree, found a giant (~10 cm) snail shell that we were told was a routine size for forest snails, and investigated the rubbery roots of lianas. Lianas are epiphytes that begin life as sprouts in the canopy and grow downward so that their roots can eventually penetrate the ground. Once they have become established in the soil, the roots grow into thick, ropy vines that entwine multiple trees and the plant at the top expands to have its own canopy of leaves.
By far the best part of the trip to Maquipucuna, though (at least as far as I was concerned) was the night. After dinner, I went to the bridge that stretches between the main road and the lodge trails to look for frogs and bugs and was not disappointed. There were some Dobsonflies maybe 4 inches long and several other interesting moths and insects, as well as a host of spiders and a frog or two. Later that evening, another student knocked on my door to give me a large (~2.5 cm) beetle, which I was incredibly excited about. While I was out looking at the beetle, I also saw some more interesting moths and even bats flying around inside the lodge's open-air lounge, catching insects that were attracted to the light.
The next morning, most of the group was up bright and early to go bird-watching. The highlight was probably spotting a toucan incredibly far in the distance, atop the last dead tree silhouetted against the clouds at the horizon. After breakfast, we hiked down to the river, where we swam around a little bit collecting bug bites before making our way back up the cliff and to the trail home. On our way back, we saw some beautiful purple and pink flowers on some of the bromeliad epiphytes that are very common around Maquipucuna.
We had barely made it home from the cloud forest before we turned around and left again for Tiputini. I was very excited to be visiting the rainforest and even the trip there was exciting. On our flight to Coca, we passed very close to several of Ecuador's snow-capped volcanoes and upon arriving at the hotel where we were to wait for our boat, we were greeted by overpriced food and cute but illegally-obtained monkeys frolicking in the trees. Our first boat trip along the Napo River was fascinating because we got to see both the landscape and the living conditions of people along the river. The forest looked fairly dense from the water, although occasionally there would be breaks in the trees and beaches with dugout canoes or small houses on them. We had seen the river from the air and from that vantage point, could make out numerous sandbars that caused there to be deep channels and shallow channels in the river, which twisted ropelike around each other and caused the crew of our small boat to steer it in swerving zigzags through the water. One guy stood at the front to scout for sandbars and another manned the rudder. I found the whole process very interesting.
The second boat trip was equally fascinating, particularly since the Tiputini River was narrower than the Napo, and the vegetation and wildlife were easier to see. The highlight of the trip was probably the giant anteater we passed on the way in, although of course, that didn't come anywhere close to what we were to find later. The Amazon rainforest (and tropical rainforests in general) are renowned for their extraordinarily high levels of biodiversity, especially in terms of species richness. Two thirds of the world’s tree species are found here, as well as 90% of its insects. I’m a big bug lover, so I was pretty excited to arrive at such a diverse location, but the majority of insects I saw were ants, which tend to scare me a little since I can never tell which ones will cause horrific medical problems when they bite and which ones are perfectly harmless.
In Tiputini, we saw everything from conga (“bullet”) ants, 2 cm long menaces whose bite we were told would cause excruciating pain and fever, to lemon ants, which we were able to eat ourselves, and which tasted a little like lemony citrus. Lemon ants are also notable because they form an interesting mutualism with a particular species of tree. The ants live on and inside of the tree, which appeared to have hollow tubes running through it when our guide split open one of its twigs, and in return for the sheltered place to live, they excrete an acidic compound in the area surrounding the tree, which prevents new growth from becoming established and blocking some of the lemon ant tree’s light. The effect is quite profound—when we came across the lemon ant tree, it was one of only a few plants in a cleared area maybe 7 m by 3.5 m.
That sort of clear area was really unusual for the rainforest, where both the canopy and understory are typically extremely dense. The rainforest has three main layers, from the ground up: the understory, the canopy, and the emergent trees. The understory is where we land-dwelling humans spent most of our time, and it is notable for its low light levels. The light environment within the rainforest is unique because the vast majority of light that hits the area is captured by the solid layer of canopy trees, with only 1-2% being used for photosynthesis by the understory plants. Rather than having a steady supply of light, the understory must make do with sun flecks, spots of sunlight which peek through the canopy. However, rather than shining constantly on certain spots, the sun flecks move with the movement of the sun, so any given spot on the forest floor is illuminated only briefly each day.
The one time that the understory gets substantial light is when a tree falls. Each tree in the forest supports not only itself but a host of epiphytes and lianas, which add to its weight considerably, making it much more likely to fall. The lianas also cause problems for neighboring trees, as they generally wrap around multiple trees on their way to the ground, meaning that when one tree falls, it also takes out many of its neighbors, all of which are chained together by lianas. The resulting area of downed trees is called a canopy gap, and it is rapidly colonized by new plants. As soon as the area opens up, new trees rush to be the first to reach canopy height and cement their place as one of the new owners of the territory. This turnover of tree residents with each canopy gap is important to maintaining the heterogeneity of the forest.
One menace to the trees of the tropical rainforest, besides each other’s lianas, is an epiphyte called the strangler fig. This peculiar plant begins life innocently enough, germinating in a tree’s canopy and sending roots down to the soil below. The trouble begins after it has become established, because it just keeps growing more roots until it entirely surrounds the host tree, which is essentially “strangled” and unable to survive. After its death, the tree quickly decomposes in the hot, humid tropical conditions, and the strangler fig stands as a hollow lattice of roots supporting its own canopy. At Tiputini, we were able to climb up inside a strangler fig that was situated just off one of the trails, using the gaps between roots as handholds. The hollow tree was fascinating and I can imagine a multitude of creatures that would enjoy living inside of it.
Next to the strangler fig was an equally intriguing sight: a magnificent emergent tree, perhaps 45 m tall. Emergent trees are notable for their height: while most canopy trees stand at 25-35 m tall, emergent trees can reach 60 m. Their size means that they live a luxuriant life free from the desperate competition for light that plagues smaller trees. This particular emergent tree was even more special because it had a green metal staircase spiraling up to a wooden platform in its canopy, from which we were able to gaze out on the surrounding forest below. We were told that we would likely see lots of birds while we were up in the canopy, but instead, my group found primarily mosquitoes, flies, and wasps. There were a few interesting birds that settled in the branches as well as an
Anolis lizard, and the sunlit bromeliads were very beautiful, but perhaps the my favorite part of the experience was just being able to see kilometers and kilometers of forest stretching unbroken on all sides of us.
After the tower, we did a second climbing excursion, this time to a series of bridges stretching between platforms in canopy trees. I was a little uncertain about my rusty harness clip and the fact that most of the platforms lacked rope “walls” on at least one side and seemed extremely easy to fall off of, so I was very nervous while in those trees. At one end of the set up was a set of two ladders strung together and roped to one of the branches of a large tree, which led to an extremely high platform with absolutely nothing to keep people from falling off its sides. I decided I wasn't gutsy enough to make the trip up to it.
One additional aspect of our visit to Tiputini that really stood out to me was the night hike we took on our last evening in the forest. In the tropical rainforest, macroinvertebrates are able to grow to much larger sizes than in temperate forests, and we were able to find many gigantic creatures. We had already stumbled across several large spiders during out diurnal hikes, but for whatever reason, the 4-inch banana spider we spotted right next to the trail early on in the night hike really freaked out most of my group and the discovery of several gigantic scorpion spiders later on did nothing to reassure people. The scorpion spiders were particularly interesting because in addition to their long walking legs and ominous claws, they also had an additional pair of feelers perhaps eight inches long on either side which they used to feel for insects walking past in the dark. We also found a cricket that was about 5 cm long which the guide said would grow to be 15 cm long. I think by far my favorites, though, were probably the millipedes, which we found several of during our time at camp. I would have loved to see a caecilian as well, but alas it was not to be!
Overall, I really loved all of our field activities. I have never before had the chance to experience environments so dissimilar to those near my various homes in the United States, and all three of the areas that we visited as part of the class were entirely new to me and entirely unexpected. I was completely stunned by what I found in each of them and will not be forgetting my experiences in them soon. I wish that I could return to each of them so that I could experience the magical feelings I felt all over again. In the paramo, it was the splendor of seeing the mist part to reveal a stunning alpine lake. At Maquipucuna, it was the thrill of seeing a multitude of insects and bats whirling around the lights of the lodge at night. In the rainforest, it was the race to catch all the details of woolly monkey behavior, both with my mind and my camera, as they leapt through the trees above me. All of these experiences reminded me why I love biology and why I hope to work in the field and they really made me appreciate and value my time exploring mainland Ecuador.
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