Las Cruces, pt. 4: Bugs, flowers, and FRUIT!

Since Friday, most of our classes have been about taxonomy. Saturday morning we had a class on insect taxonomy in which we learned how to identify characteristics of insects that will help us figure out which insects are which. We also went through a review of lots of orders of insects and discussed their basic features. After the lecture, we had a brief field exercise that basically consisted of us pairing up and wandering the gardens armed with nets and plastic bags, looking for insects. After about an hour of bug-hunting we went back to lab, examined our findings, and tried to identify them using what we had learned earlier in the day. Luckily we had packets with descriptions of each order in them, because it was very difficult to recall all of the extensive information we were presented with off the top of our heads. Some cool insects I have seen so far at Las Cruces

A spider I saw hanging out on a bromeliad in the garden at night.

A beetle that was living in Wilson House for a few days

A caterpillar that we used in our insect ID lab, as seen through the microscope.

Manny, a classmate, holding up a cool insect that we found while putting on boots before a class one afternoon.

During the insect lab, we also received our first real assignment of the semester: we have to find and identify 10 insects to the family level. Insect identification is hard enough to do to the order (since I didn't really know anything about them before this course), and identifying them to the family is even more challenging. Once we think we have identified them correctly, we have to show the insect to our instructor, Mau, and have him check it. We have to repeat this assignment three times throughout the semester, once at each OTS station we stay at (Las Cruces, La Selva, and Palo Verde). For the first two, we have unlimited attempts to correctly identify 10; i.e., even if you get twelve wrong in a row, you can keep trying until you get a total of 10 right. However, at the last station, we only have a total of 10 tries to get them right, and will be marked down if our identifications are incorrect. It takes at least an hour to identify each insect, so far I have only done one, and we are only at Las Cruces for about another week. That means that I have a minimum of 9 hours in lab in addition to my normal classes before I leave!

Saturday afternoon we had a class specifically about Lepidoptera, the order of insects in which butterflies and moths are classified. Erika, one of our professors, studies Heliconius butterfly mating, so she taught us a lot of cool things about different families of butterflies. After dinner we had a class reviewing the basics of the scientific method and experimental design, since not everyone in the program is a science major. We also got our second assignment of the semester, which is about scientific ethics. There are four topics of discussion that students will give presentations and lead discussions about throughout the semester. My topic is about data manipulation in science, and my group won't be presenting for a few weeks so we haven't started working on it yet.

In our free time before dinner, I unexpectedly ended up playing soccer with some of my classmates. It had rained (hard) the day before, so the field was muddy, which eventually meant that I was muddy. Although I don't normally play soccer, I actually had a lot of fun, and my team won!

After dinner on Saturday we had a lecture about coffee in Costa Rica, since it is such an important crop here. I thought it was very interested because the agricultural, social, economic and political aspects of its cultivation and sale are so tightly intertwined. And, of course, since it's a widely-grown crop, and also a processed product that produces waste, we talked about it from an environmental perspective as well.

Sunday morning we began the day with a talk by Zak, the director of Las Cruces, about tropical restoration ecology in general and the restoration projects here at Las Cruces specifically. We then hiked out to the edge of Las Cruces to Melissa's Meadow, a site that is currently undergoing restoration since, as its name implies, it used to be pastureland before the land was purchased and added to Las Cruces. They are letting parts of it reforest naturally, and also using sections of it to do studies comparing different restoration strategies to see which are most effective.

A frog we ran into on our way out to Melissa's Meadow.

The class on the border of the primary forest (left, dark and shady) and the former pastureland which is now secondary forest (right, more sunny because there are fewer old trees).

All the way out at one of the research sites, where they are comparing methods of restoration. This part was less advanced than other conditions, which you can tell since there are lots of grasses and few trees. A more restored patch is on the right, which is why there are some overhanging branches.

After our trip out in the field we had a lecture about floral morphology. We learned a bunch of vocabulary about flower anatomy, and then had a lab in which we dissected plants and identified their parts.

A cross-section of a flower ovary, as seen through the microscope.

A longitudinal section of a flower (Columnea spp.)

A Passiflora bloom. It was almost too pretty to cut apart... but we did it anyway.

An orchid. This one was actually too pretty to cut apart, so I kept it. Haha.

Another longitudinal section of a flower with a long tube leading down to the nectar. Flowers like this need pollinators like moths or butterflies with long probosces to reach all the way down there.

Another one that was too pretty to cut up!

The aftermath of the floral morphology lab

Later that day we had another plant morphology lecture, but this time about fruit. Like the other taxonomy and morphology lectures, it was chock full of information and difficult to absorb everything at once. However, the fruit lecture was extra fun because instead of having a dissection lab, like we did for flowers, or an ID lab, like we did for insects, we had an only semi-educational but incredibly delicious tasting lab for fruit. Unfortunately I didn't bring my camera to that event, but our professors cleared off the tables in lab and arranged them in a rectangle with plates and plates of different kinds of fruit. We made our way around the table stopping at each station to try the fruit, and describe the taste, color, smell, and texture. There were lots of awesome fruits that I had never tried before (guanabana, chayote, tamarind, cas, starfruit, sweet lemon, and others), two that I didn't like (papaya and noni, a disgusting fruit that smells and tastes like vomit, and is jelly-like in texture... only one person in the entire group could even swallow it!), and of course a bunch of familiar favorites (kiwi, pineapple, mango, coconut, sugarcane, lots of berries...). The "lab" was basically a dessert party, and everyone seemed to have a good time. Plus, Monday was our first day off, so it was a really nice way to begin our "weekend."

The leftovers from fruit lab, which we left out for the birds.