Field Notes

Task: Looking for more Guarea in Rio Limbo
Location: Rio Limbo
Assistants: Fredy
Weather: Sunny and hot all day
Truck Status: One top notch BCI boat drivers left the car so low on gas that I could not make it all the way to the gas station without having to push. I missed the boat back to the island... and lots of anger ensued.

Fredy and I did not find many Guarea guidonia, but we marked three more Guarea fuzzy and 1 more Faramea luteovirens to up sample size.

I also saw the world's most amazing fungus. There was a fungus (or lichen?) that looked like very white roots that grew up the base of all the trees in a 20 m radius. It seems like it travel though the soil and also lives on top of dead logs in between. Fredy has the pictures. It was fantastic.

Fredy Fashion Tip(s) of the Day

"You should try to braid your hair back to keep the little pieces away from your face. It would look nicer."

"When are you going back to visit your boyfriend? Maybe you should go see my cousin to get your nails done first. It looks like they could use it."

Field Notes

Task: Trying to get to Rio Paja & BBQing
Location: Rio Paja (epic fail)
Assistants: Fredy
Weather: Only sprinkled lightly
Boat Status: I think the boat uses around 3 gallons of gas to get to Rio Paja

Fredy and I tried to get to Rio Paja again. We were not able to push the boat through the channel using the oars. I called the hostel near the channel, and they proved once again to be most unhelpful. This seals my decision to go to Fortuna at the end of the week and wait to start defoliations until I get back from L.A. on the 28th.

I am sending Fredy home on Tuesday. We will probably start recesusing and defoliating trees on Saturday.

Field Notes (May 10, 2014)

These are notes for the day May 10, 2014

Task: Recensusing Saplings (counting leaves, taking missing hemi photos, measuring diameter and taking new pictures)
Location: Camino de Cruces (P24)
Assistants: Fredy
Weather: It started to rain hard at 2:30 when we were finishing up.
BCI Truck Status: I returned the BCI truck clean with pretty much the same amount of gas.
Paint Color: Blue

We found all the saplings in P24 except for two Virola. We did initial measurements for 4 new Virola to repalce the two we lost and to add a few new healthy individuals. Some of the Virola in this population seem a little bit sickly (very few leaves for their size). I wonder if I should add even more healthy individuals.

The Virola didn't seem as affected by the dry season (they lost a few leaves and put a few leaves back on). The Guarea have lost a significant number of October leaves... and have not put many new leaves on since January.

We paid $20 for the boat ride to Camino de Cruces, which I feel is obscene

So fresh and so clean!

I just realized that the greenhouse in Gamboa has a shower. I love not having to wait to go back to BCI to shower. God Bless communal bathing.

Field Notes

Task: Recensusing Saplings (counting leaves, taking missing hemi photos, measuring diameter and taking new pictures)
Location: Rio Limbo (P06)
Assistants: Fredy
Weather: It rain for a bit around 11:30.. but mostly very hot and sunny (more rain at 3:30 after we finished).
BCI Truck Status: Even though I'm the first one to drive the truck after it was under repair for 6 months, they still managed to leave me with only 1/4 tank of gas. Should probably get gas tomorrow after I use it.
Paint Color: Blue

We finished recensusing all the individuals previously measured in Rio Limbo. The trees were reasonably easy to find from the map. I made initial measurements of one extra individual of GUAFUS (17) -- remember to put this GPS point in the dataset

Most of the Faramea luteovirens individuals have recently flushed their leaves. About 2/3 of the Guarea individuals seemed on the verge of leaf flush (many buds and emerging leaves).

I was unable to get the hemisperical photos for FARLUT 12-15 and GUAFUS 17 because there was some condensation inside the lens today. I need to remember to store the lens in the dry room tonight.

Drilling Field Trial 1

I went to Buena Vista today to test out my brand new drill! My plan is to use a small drill bit to take saw dust from the stem of live saplings. I hope this technique will be a minimally invasive way to compare wood samples from the same sapling before and after defoliation. Otherwise, I may have to sacrifice several individuals at the beginning of the experiment so that I know what the carbohydrate and nutrient levels are at the beginning of the growing season.

Overall, I think the first field trial went well. The drill is powerful enough, and the battery showed no signs of slowing down (I also have two of these batteries!). I took only the 1/16" drill bit to the field because I thought it would be less invasive that the 3/32" bit that I used in Tupper. The problem with the 1/16" bit was that it was only slightly longer than the eppendorf vial I used to catch the saw dust, which made it difficult to drill deep enough into the sapling. Maybe next time I should bring the larger size for the bigger saplings -- also, maybe it's possible to find 1/16" bits that are longer?

By drilling four holes in each sapling, I was able to extract ~20 mg of fresh material from the practice Faramea saplings (these are currently drying in the oven to determine their dry weight). Drilling the practice Inga was more difficult because this species has a lot of sap. The wood kind of sticks to the vial and to the drill bit. Luckily, most of my Ingas are bigger than 1 cm, so I am guessing I will be able to use the bigger drill bit. Also, I should bring a pair of tweezers to carefully remove the wood from the bit and vial.

I wonder if I can make a rain coat for my drill... I think it would be a bad deal if it got wet.

Tunnel of Love Closed for Business

Fredy and I road out toward Rio Paja to do a sapling recensus today. Sadly, the channel that leads to this site (AKA the tunnel of love) did not have enough water for the boat to pass through. When I got back to the island I looked up the Jungle Land Lodge (the floating hostel on the other side of the channel) to see if there is an alternate route or if there are times of day when the channel is passable. I called the number listed on Trip Advisor, but the person who answered was like, "I'm in a meeting!! Why do tourists keep calling this number?!" Oh Panama.

Entrance to Tunnel of Love May 2014.

Field Notes

Task: Testing drill method (originally planning to recensus Rio Paja).
Location: Buena Vista (P13)
Assistants: Fredy
Weather: It was sunny in the morning, but then poured down rain after 12:30. We came back to BCI around 1:30
Boat Status: The propeller got stuck in some weeds near Rio Paja for a hot minute. Otherwise, was it was its usual tempermental self.
Paint Color: No painting :(

Fredy and I still could not find the INGNOB saplings that we were missing yesterday. I am sort of out of ideas, but I think it's ok because I have 20 individuals of that species without those three.

Leaf Deficit

The saplings in Buena Vista generally have many fewer leaves now than they did when I sampled them in July 2013. I was hoping that the trees would already be experiencing refoliation by now with the onset of the wet season, but it appears that leaf flush may still be a few weeks off. Unfortunately, I don't think I can start my defoliation experiment until leaf flush occurs. I want to force plants to use the emergency nutrient reserves that they set aside for stress events (e.g., a fallen branch, a very hungry caterpillar) rather than the reserves they have set aside to create new leaves this year.

On the bright side, the majority of the Inga saplings have oodles of maturing buds -- maybe leaf flush will happen soon?!?! Faramea is a little more iffy -- they produced a lot of leaves between Septemeber and January, but show very few immature leaves right now.

I saw this pig today.

The palm in front of his face kind of makes him look like a pirate. 

Field Notes

Task: Recensusing Saplings (counting leaves, taking missing hemi photos, measuring diameter and taking new pictures)
Location: Buena Vista (P13)
Assistants: Fredy
Weather: It sprinkled all day.. paint may need a touch up
Boat Status: I guess you need to lift the accelerator when you start the engine? I don't remember this ever being the case before. Still having the feeling of impending boat doom.
Paint Color: Blue

We finished censusing all but three trees in P13. I thought that the missing trees (INGNOB 2, INGNOB 3, and INGNOB 4) should have been in the vicinity of INGNOB 1. I have a few ideas of where we didn't walk based on the GPS "adventure" for today -- go north of INGNOB 1.

There are plenty of extra Inga at P13 to use for practice drilling (or supplemental individuals) if necessary.

Photosynthesis Idea

1) For I. nobilis, the majority of mature leaves appear functionally dead. The leaves are completely covered in epiphylls and discolored where the lamina does poke through. Jim talked about this at some point with respect to big fat Garcinia leaves at Fortuna. Why don't the trees drop these leaves? Are these leaves serving as a storage reserve of nutrients? Or is there more photosynthesis occurring than I would suspect? I should look into papers that compare the photosynthetic rate of young versus old leaves. Maybe it could be an interesting side project to test this on one of my species across soil environments -- I would hypothesize that the relative difference in photosynthetic rates between young and old leaves would be greater on more infertile soils where there is a greater advantage in maintaining a photosynthetically dead nutrient reservoir. Also, I should consider focusing my defoliation on newer leaves, because removing the old leaves might not evoke a re-foliation response if these leaves are not contributing carbon to the plant.

Cupania seemannii

Cupania seemannii (Sapindaceae) mid-canopy tree with broad distribution both along altitudinal and soil gradients. C. seemannii has very large compound leaves with a thick woody rachis. Sometimes birds make adorable nests in the crook between the stem and the rachis. The best thing about this species is that seemannii has THREE sets of double letters.

Faramea occidentalis

Meet Faramea occidentalis (Rubiaceae). F. occidentalis is an understorey shrub that can be distinguished from other Rubiaceae by its crossed stipules. F. occidentalis is one of the most abundant tree species on the Barro Colorado Island 50-ha plot.

Emerging Leaves at the Beginning of the Wet Season

Characteristic crossed stipules

Inga nobilis

Meet Inga nobilis (Fabaceae). It is a nitrogen-fixing tree that specializes on high fertility habitats in the Panama Canal Zone. I. nobilis has compound leaves typically consisting of 8-10 leaflets.

Fredy Fashion Tip of the Day

"The Columbia brand you are wearing is very fashionable in Panama right now. Everyone wore Columbia jackets to the Feria de David, but they did not get them so dirty. Maybe you should try not to be so dirty." **

**Note all of Fredy Fashion Tips are poor translations of Panamanian Spanish

First Day of Work!

Summer 2014 will be my last Ph.D. field season in Panama, so I gave in to nostalgia and decided to make a blog. Although my boring field diary will eventually be discovered in an embarrassing way, I think it's a convenient way to intersperse text about my field season with horrible amateur photography from my BRAND NEW CAMERA. I wish my camera could more easily take a picture of itself because it would be the best thing ever to post underneath this post.

Boring Science Stuff (6-May-2014):

Task: Recensusing Saplings
Location: Buena Vista (P13)
Assistants: Fredy, also Sebastian needed a lift to BV to collect seeds.
Weather: Rained hard from 12-12:30. We stopped painting for about 1 hour.
Boat Status: The boat was filled with water when I got to it this morning - we had to do a lot of bailing out. This afternoon, the engine had a hard time turning over. We eventually were able to get back to BCI. The mechanics said they would look at it in the morning at 8:30. Hopefully it just needs a new battery.
Paint Color: Blue

Complications:
-We had to make a trip back to the lab because the red paint I selected looked too similar to the pink paint I used in August/September. Also, I can't seem to find the hemispherical lens. Should ask Camilo.
-The lake lower than I have seen it before (granted I think I didn't start using the boat until later in May last year). It may be very difficult to get to Rio Paja with the lake like this. We will have to see.