Panama 2022 - Week 3

Day 15 – 6th October 2022

Sofia has left us and we must now be responsible adults and do science. I should stress that this was always the plan, Sofia would come out for the first two weeks to get things off the ground and then entrust us to complete the project - she hasn’t just abandoned us out of the blue. We said our farewells after breakfast and whilst Sofia headed for the dock and for home, we headed into the forest on a final day of seed collections. As a team we have now covered all 40km (ish) of trials on the island, collecting seeds from about 80 Jacaranda copaia trees. As we’re now a team of three we’ll either head out together or, like today, Paddy will head out solo and I’ll head out with El. It was a short walk today, around 5km, with only a few gullies to deal with. We made it back just after lunch had ended and spent the afternoon sorting seeds.

Day 16 – 7th October 2022

Another quiet day spent either in the lab sorting seeds or outside digging soil to use in seed trays. We’re a long way from the nearest garden centre, so filling plant pots is a lot more laborious than just buying some compost back home. Unfortunately, the area we were allowed to dig from was full of stones and highly compacted, which meant the soil needed to be sieved and to do this it had to be spread out and dried in the sun for several hours. A tricky problem to solve in a climate which gets around 2500mm of rain every year.

There's a green iguana that spends most of its time in the tree outside of our lab. Occasionally we see it walking around on the ground, but mostly it just basks on a large branch looking fairly serene. Not a bad life.

Day 17 – 8th October 2022

More soil digging today. We finally extracted enough (a few hundred kilos) and laid it all out to dry on an area of flat concrete by the shade houses. As rain threatened, we collected all the soil into seed trays and carried them into the lab in the hope that the air conditioning, a fan, and a dehumidifier would dry the soil as well as being out in the baking sun would have done, had it not currently been pissing it down.

I set up the camera trap today in a test spot around camp. I’m not expecting much until I deploy it in the forest, but you never know.

Day 18 – 9th October 2022

We spent the morning sieving the now dry soil that we collected yesterday. Leaving it in the lab overnight had worked, but unfortunately, it now meant that the lab was full of whatever had been living in the soil. Combined with all the insects that we’d brought in on the surface of the Jacaranda seeds, we had very successfully ruined one of our few safe spaces away from the outside.

There is a good reason for all this seed collecting, soil digging and drying. We now have seeds from Jacaranda trees all over the island. Some trees are isolated from others, whilst some are in densely populated areas of Jacaranda. The plan is to jumble up all of the seeds and plant a random sample of them in light gaps across the forest, some in areas of high Jacaranda density, and some in areas of low density. We’ll then get an idea of how conspecific (same species) tree density influences seedling mortality, the idea being that there should be fewer plant enemies in isolated areas than in densely populated areas (conspecific negative density dependence). To do this properly, we need an idea of how many seeds are likely to germinate from a sample, and how long they take to germinate. Hence the digging, the drying and the sieving of soil, the filling of seed trays, and the planting of seeds.

It wasn’t an overly exciting morning. The highlight of our day was, upon reflection just a fairly mundane coincidence, but to us was a moment of divine intervention. The usual topic of food came up (we’re always hungry, tired and hungry), and we commented on how we thought it was strange that of all the food we’d eaten so far, pasta hadn’t been on the menu. Then, lo and behold, spag bol for lunch. It was delicious and, to us, a miracle. The church are unlikely to agree.

I went for a walk in the afternoon. Initially, I did a loop of the base, which included passing the crocodile on the boat ramp and seeing a flock of 30-odd hawks of some kind circling overhead. No idea what they were. There's a lot of wildlife around the centre that you get accustomed to very quickly and I often have to remind myself how special it all is. But typically you can see Howler Monkey most days, Agoutis and Coatis any time, a variety of Flycatchers, alongside Tanagers, Snail Kites and Caracaras, whilst Vultures fly over the forest and Frigate Birds fly over the bay.

I bumped into another research group, who, up to now have made very little effort to interact with anyone on the island outside of their team. Much to my surprise, they invited me to watch them test their new drone with a claw and disc saw attachment for taking branches from the canopy. It’s an absolute monster of a bit of kit and incredibly impressive, but I don’t envy them having to carry it around the forest as it must weigh a tonne. The drone itself is a multi-rotor with six props. It takes off and lands on fold-out legs which are essentially a high-tech piano stand. Attached to the drone is a 3m long pole that dangles below it and has to be gently laid flat on the ground when landing. At the end of the pole is the claw handle used for grabbing branches and a disc saw that cuts the branch.

Day 19 – 10th October 2022

Another day in the lab and not in the forest. It’s an odd situation to be in because I both love and dread going out into the field. The heat, humidity and stifling lack of airflow make it a truly unpleasant place to be at times, but the odd glimpse of something magical makes it worth the effort.

Anyway, the reason we’re in the lab and not the forest is because we’re waiting for feedback on the project proposals. Some has come in, not altogether positive, so Paddy has some thinking to do. I spent the day removing small stones from the 50 seed trays we’d laid out in the shade houses. Not exactly thrilling.

On my way back to my room I nearly trod on a snake. I’ve never seen anything that looked more like a stick but absolutely wasn’t. I had stick insects as pets when I was younger and even they weren’t as convincing. The snake was about a meter long, but only as thick as a pencil. I’ve no idea about the species yet, but will do some investigating.

As I write this, the thunder is rumbling away, I think we’re in for a downpour. When this happens the water that hits the roofs of the buildings forms great waterfalls outside the windows. The sound of the water hitting the ground is enough to drown out the sound of the thunder. It’s biblical. The decibels are then upped another notch when the Howler Monkeys start their mournful wailing and add to the cacophony. I’d be wailing too if I was stuck outside in the storm. The noise that Howler Monkeys produce is an extremely, unpleasant, guttural scream that sounds as though someone is gasping for air whilst in intense pain. The monkeys are communicating with each other, but to human ears, it can be a little jarring, although to be honest we've become so accustomed to it now it's just background noise along with the insects and the frogs.

I’d better head back down to the lab before the rain actually starts, otherwise it will be a very wet walk to the canteen for dinner.

Day 20 – 11th October 2022

Frustration is beginning to set in. As we’re waiting for comments on the proposal to go back and forth between four academics, across two time zones and three institutions, we’re in limbo. We can’t plant the seeds as we don’t know what density to plant them at. We can’t go into the forest because as soon as we get an email confirming the density we need to crack on as a matter of urgency. This means another office day on a tropical island, doing work I could have done from my desk in Reading. I find these days particularly frustrating for two reasons. Firstly, I don’t have a lot of work to do on the project at the moment, so I feel slightly redundant whilst Paddy and El are hard at work. Secondly, our office is split into two sections, with a partitioning glass wall and sliding glass door in between my half and Paddy and El’s half. The door is always open, but with the aircon blasting out from my end of the office I can barely hear what they’re saying which makes joining in the conversations a little tricky.

We should get the go-ahead to start planting soon, which will remove my listlessness and shake off some of the stir-craziness. Yes, we’re in an amazing location, but in all honesty, around the base, there’s not a lot to do if you don’t have any work.

Day 21 – 12th October 2022

Seed planting day. After a few emails back and forth between Paddy and the team we decided, sod it, let’s get the seeds in the ground. And by the ground we meant the 50 seed trays in the shade house that we filled with the soil that we’d dug, dried, sifted, destoned and distributed. The rest of the day was spent doing odd jobs that needed doing alongside the planting. All in all a much less frustrating day than yesterday, although not the most interesting.