GPS Point Capture of Adandoned Tropical Grazing Pasture at the Las Cruces Biological Station, Costa Rica
Saturday, December 15, 2018
Today was an exceptionally productive day at the abandoned grazing pasture located in the Las Cruces Biological Station here in Costa Rica. We had breakfast at the usual time, 6:30AM, and then we recruited two workers to help us in this field work today. We recruited two young men that are here with their dad from Ahnni Lakota College which is located in eastern Montana, USA; their dad teaches Environmental Science at that college. Randy and Gabriel are their names and they were very helpful in the work that we needed to get completed today. We obtained the needed equipment for this outing from the equipment that was brought by Heritage University. Specifically, we needed GPS units, a weather monitoring instrument for things like wind speed, humidity, temperature and other similar parameters. We also made sure we had our sacked lunches that we requested the night before at dinner, which is standard protocol here when you are planning to be out in the field during lunch time.
We embarked for the field around 8AM and walked down the Java River Trail towards the west, which is all down hill and can be slippery and treacherous. I am amazed that we are only about 5 miles from Panama to the west on the other side of the Java River, pretty amazing and I know that that is where the other participants are from and reside.
At the strangler fig stop, as we have come to call it, is where there is a smaller trail that goes off to the north and this is the trail we take to get to our field site. We take this trail and then there is another right hand turn off of the main trail that goes into the forest. This is a remnant of a trail that we are on now using to get to the agricultural pasture land that has been abandoned in the last 15 to 20 years.
As I stated last night on my blog, there is a large quantity of research and publications that have looked at this type of vegetational succession in the tropics. I have only done a brief cursory review of the literature and thus I do not feel that I can adequately cover many the questions and facets of this research that will inevidibly surface when this work is presented, but then again, we only have a few days to conduct this research and get this work summarized for a presentation in a few days.
So, today we focused on getting GPS data points for two species of trees that are known to colonize abandoned livestock grazing pastures. They are known to aggressively colonize these areas and must outcompete other species to successfully get established on these areas, reach maturity, set seed, and reproduce. These trees are Cecropus and Guayana.
We arrived at the abandoned field site and we knew that it was going to be physically demanding since there are plants growing on the site that are shoulder high and, in some places, taller than our heads. The vegetation is so dense that walking through the field site requires one to step and push the vegetation aside while keeping your balance and making sure there are no spiders, snakes or other hazards in your way or on your person. Your legs get wet and so do your shoes, they become drenched with the moisture from the plants and the spongy vegetative understory within this grass and fern choked pasture.
After we decided and talked about how we were going to collect the data, and how we would go through this very thick vegetation, we broke into two groups. I chose Gabriel to work with me, and Christine worked with Randy. Gabriel and I pushed our way through the vegetation and made our own "trails" to get to the trees that are growing on this site and in the periphery of this abandoned pasture. We took turns blazing the trails through the vegetation and also in reading the GPS coordinates while the other wrote them down. We covered the entire pasture and it was not easy, we were both hot and perspiring, and we both had water, but the water we had was quickly consumed in about an hour of being in this habitat. It is so much better to stay in the shade then go out into direct sunlight, the sunlight will make you overheat and will also cause sunburn. We were both wearing long pants with hiking boots, and we had sun and bug protection on, but sometimes it just takes shear will power to get in there and get the job done. By the time we made a loop inside the pasture, collecting data points while forcing our bodies through the grass and ferns, we were completely drenched. Our shoes and jeans were drenched from the flooded soil and standing water, and our jeans and legs were drenched from all of the water that accumulated on the plants from the rain the night before.
I am very impressed with this young man that assisted me today. He did not once complain or question what we had to do. He wasn't afraid to go into this tall vegetation even though I was a bit apprehensive myself since I did see large spiders, spider webs, and knew that we were in a tropical rain forest where there are large numbers of snakes. This also my second time to this location also, this was his first time here and he did not say a word. So, I am thankful for him and his help from him and his brother.
We managed to make our way to roughly 29 trees inside and surrounding the abandoned grazing pasture. Our goal was to see how this species is colonizing this area. We, as two groups, decided that we would focus on Cecropus and the other team would focus and capture date points for Guayana. Upon our return to the starting point, the other team was still there. I do not know if the number of trees were overwhelming or if the vegetation was simply too dense, but there was not many tree coordinates captured by the other team. This may be fine, since the other species is more prevalent and would be more time consuming to get.
We may go out in a day or two to get some of these points, but we shall see. I was hoping that at least a few of these tree coordinates would be captured to get a spatial idea of how they return back to these sites.
Overall, it was a successful day. We are taking the day off tomorrow to rest and go to the huge town of San Vito :). It is very large, but it's a day away from the Station and things to do and see. This experience is finally sinking in, I feel humbled and grateful to be here, no where else in my life have I seen this degree of biodiversity in such a natural setting.
I saw the north star this early this morning through the mist laden palm trees, while the monkeys and the birds and other wildlife started vocalizing, and I thought of all of my Dine' brothers and sisters and other family members back home on Dine' Bikeyah; it made me realize how blessed I am to be able to choose a career and make a living doing what I love. Aho!
The faculty that gave up their winter break to be here are always believing and striving for the education of Indigenous Peoples, whether it be the classical Western European sense with concepts and theories, or the Traditional Ecological Knowledge of our forefathers and grandmothers, we value this and know these teachings are essential and needed and must be respected and honored. Thank you.
Today was an exceptionally productive day at the abandoned grazing pasture located in the Las Cruces Biological Station here in Costa Rica. We had breakfast at the usual time, 6:30AM, and then we recruited two workers to help us in this field work today. We recruited two young men that are here with their dad from Ahnni Lakota College which is located in eastern Montana, USA; their dad teaches Environmental Science at that college. Randy and Gabriel are their names and they were very helpful in the work that we needed to get completed today. We obtained the needed equipment for this outing from the equipment that was brought by Heritage University. Specifically, we needed GPS units, a weather monitoring instrument for things like wind speed, humidity, temperature and other similar parameters. We also made sure we had our sacked lunches that we requested the night before at dinner, which is standard protocol here when you are planning to be out in the field during lunch time.
We embarked for the field around 8AM and walked down the Java River Trail towards the west, which is all down hill and can be slippery and treacherous. I am amazed that we are only about 5 miles from Panama to the west on the other side of the Java River, pretty amazing and I know that that is where the other participants are from and reside.
At the strangler fig stop, as we have come to call it, is where there is a smaller trail that goes off to the north and this is the trail we take to get to our field site. We take this trail and then there is another right hand turn off of the main trail that goes into the forest. This is a remnant of a trail that we are on now using to get to the agricultural pasture land that has been abandoned in the last 15 to 20 years.
As I stated last night on my blog, there is a large quantity of research and publications that have looked at this type of vegetational succession in the tropics. I have only done a brief cursory review of the literature and thus I do not feel that I can adequately cover many the questions and facets of this research that will inevidibly surface when this work is presented, but then again, we only have a few days to conduct this research and get this work summarized for a presentation in a few days.
So, today we focused on getting GPS data points for two species of trees that are known to colonize abandoned livestock grazing pastures. They are known to aggressively colonize these areas and must outcompete other species to successfully get established on these areas, reach maturity, set seed, and reproduce. These trees are Cecropus and Guayana.
We arrived at the abandoned field site and we knew that it was going to be physically demanding since there are plants growing on the site that are shoulder high and, in some places, taller than our heads. The vegetation is so dense that walking through the field site requires one to step and push the vegetation aside while keeping your balance and making sure there are no spiders, snakes or other hazards in your way or on your person. Your legs get wet and so do your shoes, they become drenched with the moisture from the plants and the spongy vegetative understory within this grass and fern choked pasture.
After we decided and talked about how we were going to collect the data, and how we would go through this very thick vegetation, we broke into two groups. I chose Gabriel to work with me, and Christine worked with Randy. Gabriel and I pushed our way through the vegetation and made our own "trails" to get to the trees that are growing on this site and in the periphery of this abandoned pasture. We took turns blazing the trails through the vegetation and also in reading the GPS coordinates while the other wrote them down. We covered the entire pasture and it was not easy, we were both hot and perspiring, and we both had water, but the water we had was quickly consumed in about an hour of being in this habitat. It is so much better to stay in the shade then go out into direct sunlight, the sunlight will make you overheat and will also cause sunburn. We were both wearing long pants with hiking boots, and we had sun and bug protection on, but sometimes it just takes shear will power to get in there and get the job done. By the time we made a loop inside the pasture, collecting data points while forcing our bodies through the grass and ferns, we were completely drenched. Our shoes and jeans were drenched from the flooded soil and standing water, and our jeans and legs were drenched from all of the water that accumulated on the plants from the rain the night before.
I am very impressed with this young man that assisted me today. He did not once complain or question what we had to do. He wasn't afraid to go into this tall vegetation even though I was a bit apprehensive myself since I did see large spiders, spider webs, and knew that we were in a tropical rain forest where there are large numbers of snakes. This also my second time to this location also, this was his first time here and he did not say a word. So, I am thankful for him and his help from him and his brother.
We managed to make our way to roughly 29 trees inside and surrounding the abandoned grazing pasture. Our goal was to see how this species is colonizing this area. We, as two groups, decided that we would focus on Cecropus and the other team would focus and capture date points for Guayana. Upon our return to the starting point, the other team was still there. I do not know if the number of trees were overwhelming or if the vegetation was simply too dense, but there was not many tree coordinates captured by the other team. This may be fine, since the other species is more prevalent and would be more time consuming to get.
We may go out in a day or two to get some of these points, but we shall see. I was hoping that at least a few of these tree coordinates would be captured to get a spatial idea of how they return back to these sites.
Overall, it was a successful day. We are taking the day off tomorrow to rest and go to the huge town of San Vito :). It is very large, but it's a day away from the Station and things to do and see. This experience is finally sinking in, I feel humbled and grateful to be here, no where else in my life have I seen this degree of biodiversity in such a natural setting.
I saw the north star this early this morning through the mist laden palm trees, while the monkeys and the birds and other wildlife started vocalizing, and I thought of all of my Dine' brothers and sisters and other family members back home on Dine' Bikeyah; it made me realize how blessed I am to be able to choose a career and make a living doing what I love. Aho!
The faculty that gave up their winter break to be here are always believing and striving for the education of Indigenous Peoples, whether it be the classical Western European sense with concepts and theories, or the Traditional Ecological Knowledge of our forefathers and grandmothers, we value this and know these teachings are essential and needed and must be respected and honored. Thank you.
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