Edge Effect

Starting with last weekend I’ve got a lot to cover. Last Sunday a few of us went to La Mitad del Mundo. We took 2 buses and a taxi to get there and once we arrived had to wait in way too long of a line to enter. The city of La Mitad del Mundo was made specifically for tourists which made it super expensive to do anything. It was $3.50 just to enter. It was $4 more to enter the museums so we just walked around for a little bit after getting a picture in both hemispheres! There was not much else to do so we got food and returned to Quito. It was good to get a picture but the whole day was really long and it felt like we fell into the tourist trap.

Monday was our first day of classes! My professor is so awesome and he totally would fit in at CSD. The first day we did a review over general ecology that made me remember a few lessons from APES with Mrs. Barb back in sophomore year. After class, my friends and I found somewhere for lunch. There was a place right down the road that is set up with a bunch of food truck type restaurants. I got empanadas from one and they were so good but huge. I only was able to eat 2/3 I was given. The little set up though was so nice, there were the food trucks all around and then a little center area with picnic tables. It had the same close community feeling as biergartens in Germany. It would be awesome if places like this existed more in the US.

I had my first phylogenetics class after. This class doesn’t start until about 4 weeks into our time in the Galapagos but my professor will be in a documentary on one of the other islands for our first week of class. He explained our project for the class so that we could work to download anything we need to be able to create our own documentaries about a Galapagos species. The project seems fascinating and my group and I are going to be doing ours on the green sea turtle. During class, we started to download DNA data sets and software while also analyzing phylogenetic trees (which we will also be creating!). I can’t wait for that class to actually start because we will get to go get footage of our species ourselves, which means snorkeling with sea turtles!

Tuesday was very similar to Monday because I had both classes again and  we went to the same place for lunch. We also had orientation for our trip in about two weeks to Tiputini, the rainforest biodiversity station that we get to spend a week at! We found out that it is going to take about 12 hours to travel from Quito to the station, taking a plane, boat, and open backed truck.

Wednesday was our first field trip with my tropical ecology class. We learned about tropical montane forests on Tuesday and now we were traveling to one. We took a 4 hour bus ride to get to Baños/Río Topo. We stopped at a pitstop waterfall and walked along the river and over a suspension bridge to be able to stand right next to the huge waterfall. Then we filed onto the bus to get to our hotel. We arrived at our hotel which was way more than I expected it to be. I imagined that we would be a little hostel but instead it was this gorgeous little hotel that had a pool, hot tub, and open area in the center surrounded by our little cabin type rooms. We split up into our rooms and dropped off our bags. My roommates and I were so surprised when we walked in and there were 4 beds, a sofa, a huge TV, and a hanging hammock chair. Not at all what we were expecting.

We quickly changed into our clothes for fieldwork because we only had half an hour to relax. We all met outside the bus in our rubber boots and climbed back onboard. We drove along the windy mountain road, and through some very sketchy tunnels. To get to the field site we had to go down a gravel road and over a river, then once we couldn’t drive anymore we had to hike up a steep slightly muddy hill. One our way, we talked about how we would set up our experiments to measure the edge effect on the section of forest we were going to. Edge effect is “the influence that two ecological communities have on each other along the boundary that separates them.” The section of forest we were measuring is right next to a pasture. We set up thermometers along the pasture, the edge where the pasture and forest meet, and into the forest. The thermometers were set up to measure temperature changes throughout the night and until we picked them up the next day. We set up the farthest thermometer about 70 meters into the forest, which involved trying to climb up the muddy side of the mountain and over some fallen trees. Once both groups set up their thermometers, our professor told us about some history of the area, including the story of an ancient Incan document that supposedly leads to the hidden golden treasure from when Spanish conquistadors invaded. We then hiked back down the mountain in the rain which made the way down super slippery and also reminded me of our time hiking down the volcano in Guatemala! We all kept sliding and falling the whole way down. We got back to the hotel and were so exhausted. We ate dinner, watched a bit of a telenovela, and fell asleep before 10.

On Thursday, we got up early and then headed back to the field site to test our other two variables; the water filtration ability of the soil and the percentage of herbivory on plants. We measured herbivory by randomly selecting leaves and gauging the percentage of the plant that had been eaten by insects. We did this at 4 different locations by starting at the path we had made the day before and then went to the left and right at intervals of 2 meters until we had 16 leaf samples. It was actually really fun having to trek into random parts of the forest. I was in charge of measuring out the stops and picking the leaves randomly. I had to be sure to not hit any of the spiky trees when I blindly chose our samples.

The coolest thing was at one point when I was looking down at a plant I heard a huge buzzing and thought it was a bee. Then I looked over and there was a hummingbird about 5 feet from my face just sitting on a flower. It was so gorgeous and was right there for just a split second, then flew back away.

After spending close to 4 hours taking samples we headed back down to the mountain to analyze our data. Each group had to make a presentation but needed to be creative. My group made human graphs to show our data which ended up better than I thought it might. We were able to determine there was an edge effect with some of our data but other variables were inconclusive about the presence of an edge effect. Once both groups presented we went to dinner and then hung out in the hot tub for a little bit until we were too exhausted.

Friday, we were supposed to go on a hike but it had rained all night. Part of the hike involved crossing a river that got to be too high for us to be able to cross. Instead, we went into the town of Baños for 2 hours and headed back to Quito. The town was cute but it was raining so it was not super fun to walk around. We found a cute cafe where we got some pancakes and relaxed before we were going to be sitting on the bus for a long four hour bus ride back.

When I got back home, I had planned on relaxing and going to bed early. I was exhausted. Instead, my host parents asked me if I wanted to go salsa dancing with them. At first I didn’t think I would go but then I changed my mind and quickly changed into my heels. We drove into Quito and walked into a little restaurant. My host parents were meeting with a bunch of their friends for a birthday party so we all talked for a bit as the live band got set up. I danced a good bit and it was so much fun. Thankfully I had a little bit of salsa practice from latin night in UNC!

We got home around 1:30 and I fell straight asleep. I then woke up about six hours later to meet some friends to head to Otavalo. Otavalo is known for its huge artisan market. One our way to the market we stopped by a gorgeous lake that had some cows and horses and a llama hanging out right next to it.

We explored through the crowded allies and attempted to barter with the store owners. I felt like there were a few things I could have gotten for cheaper but I started slow and got some better deals as I continued talking with people. The best thing was I stopped at this one stand where the person was selling jewelry. When I first asked how much things were, it was a little overpriced so I didn’t think I would buy anything. I started talking with the guy who owned the stand and made the jewelry and he was so cool. Turns out when I asked where he was from, he said everywhere because he has been traveling around all of South America for the last 6 years. (Though he is actually originally from Argentina and had many of the rocks he had for jewelry were also from Argentina). He made a ring for me and also made the chain for the necklace I bought right there as we talked.

After my friends came back around, (they left me while I talked with him) we went back to one of the stores to get some of the classic Otavalo pants and then headed to lunch.

The whole group of us talked at lunch and then headed to get some ice cream, see a lagoon, and to see a waterfall.

Afterwards, we headed back to Quito. This next week is my second week of classes and we are going on a field trip Wednesday to a place that just got 6cm of snow in the end of August?? Crazy!