My first trip ever abroad has been overwhelming so far, but in a good way. I’ve never been to Costa Rica, or even abroad, so I have a lot to say regarding my experiences so far. I feel like my senses are constantly being bombarded with a million different sights and sounds and smells. I’ve been in Costa Rica now for three weeks already and I don’t think I will ever get bored with the view. The country is so diverse and beautiful and I am so excited for this opportunity. The first time I saw the sunset in Jaco I was speechless, and my first night hike through the jungle in La Selva was eerie yet unforgettable. It was difficult, at first, to find unique animals amongst the lush green rainforest, but once I became better at spotting creatures, it was so exciting. The first time I spotted an interesting animal on my own was on a night hike at the Texas A&M Soltis Center. I was so thrilled that I found something interesting that I don’t even remember what species of snake the tour guide said it was.
The first two weeks of my trip were for fun and travel but by now we’re way into our schoolwork. We’re here on a field course in global environment management for our Master’s program in Environmental Management and Sustainability. Last week, at La Selva Biological Station, we did a mini research project, and I got to learn about and try out the camera traps. I didn’t know a whole lot about camera traps beforehand, but these little camouflage boxes that get strapped to tree trunks have the ability to capture all kinds of elusive and mysterious mammals on camera and video. They are super easy to use and you could leave them in the forest for weeks without any attention (Kays et al. 2011). And the potential to photograph a jaguar in the rainforest was incredibly exciting.
Unfortunately our camera traps did not capture a picture of a jaguar, but they did work because we got pictures of an anteater and peccaries. This mini project was the inspiration behind my proposed research for this field course. I would like to use the camera traps to look at mammal communities along stream edges in Las Cruces, the last field station we will be traveling to. Terrestrial mammals in the tropics are an important part of the forest community, and they can serve as indicators of ecosystem health (Ahumada et al. 2011). Camera traps are often used to survey mammal communities because they are noninvasive and also typically have an infrared camera for collecting images at night. They are very useful for density and abundance estimations of mammals (Cove et al. 2013). Las Cruces has different kinds of neighboring land use outside their forested boundaries, such as coffee farms, pastures, and more forest and mammals utilize these transition areas differently (Sekercioglu et al. 2015, Daily et al. 2003). So it would be interesting to see if these mammal communities actually are significantly different near these different areas. We will have a bit more time to develop and organize the project so hopefully my project is pursued and we get the chance to photograph rare and interesting animals deep in the jungle of Las Cruces.
Works Cited
Ahumada JA, Silva CEF, Gajapersad K, Hallam C, Hurtado J, Martin E, McWilliam A, Mugerwa B, O’Brien T, Rovero F, Sheil D, Spironello WR, Winarni N, Andelman SJ. 2011. Community structure and diversity of tropical forest mammals: data from a global camera trap network. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B.; 366(1578):2703-2711.
Cove MV, Spinola RM, Jackson VL, Saenz JC, and Chassot O. 2013. Integrating occupancy modeling and camera-trap data to estimate medium and large mammal detection and richness in a Central American biological corridor. Tropical Conservation Science; 6(6):781-795.
Daily GC, Ceballos G, Pacheco J, Suzan G, Sanchez-Azofeifa A. 2003. Countryside biogeography of neotropical mammal: conservation opportunities in agricultural landscapes of Costa Rica. Conservation Biology; 17(6):1814-1826.
Kays R, Tilak S, Kranstauber B, Jansen PA, Carbone C, Rowcliffe M, Fountain T, Eggert J, He Z. 2011. Camera traps as sensor networks for monitoring animal communities. IJRRWSN; 1(2):19-29.
Sekercioglu CH, Loarie SR, Oviedo-Brenes F, Mendenhall CD, Daily GC, and Ehrlich PR. 2015. Tropical countryside riparian corridors provide critical habitat and connectivity for seed dispersing forest birds in a fragmented landscape. Journal of Ornithology; 156(1):343-353.