Costa Rica 2019

Sunday, August 4, 2019

Sunday, August 4th

What an action packed day! We got up near the crack of dawn, SO EARLY! After a quick breakfast, we piled into the buses for an excruciatingly long car ride to the national park.

A quick stop before the hike.

After a short nap on the way, we arrived ready to observe the wildlife. Our trek took us through both the rain and dry forests; they were so diverse! Along with natural formations, we all looked at the historic ruins of the old cattle ranchers.

"The Cauldrons" used to process sugarcane.

Our first stop took us to "The Cauldrons". No, they're not witch cauldrons (although that would be super spooky!). After a quick history lesson on cattle ranching, we set off on our hike down the winding nature trail.

Our first walk over water.

Not only were there trees and vines, but there were also a few animal sightings! Along the way, we witnessed spider monkeys, howler monkeys and even a wild turkey (in a tree!).

Unidentified blue moth larvae.

While all the wildlife was mesmerizing, by far the most relaxing part was the stop at the springs! Although there were both hot and cold springs, we all seemed to migrate towards the clear, hot water.

Once we got out of the springs, we had an exhausting hike to the waterfall. Some of us loved the cold rushing water.

Once we got back to our starting point (a total of 6 km), we had a delicious lunch break of sandwiches, chips and cookies. Let's not forget the juice that was TO DIE FOR! After we filled our bellies, we got back in the van for another long ride.

The after effects of a long hike.

Our relaxing drive back didn't last for long, though! Our van had a flat tire.

Flat tire time!

Once we got a new tire, we came back to FLA for laser-focused work on our experiments.

Working hard in the lab.

While some of us were busy in the lab, the rest of us were out in the field with important work.

Collecting leaves to feed the ants.

Saturday, August 3, 2019

Saturday, August 3rd

Today started as a typical day at Finca La Anita: up by 7am, eggs and juice for breakfast, and a morning meeting. The rest of the day was bursting with activity! After the short meeting, we split up to divide and conquer the day (and make it easier on the adults).

After we split up, my group went for a relaxing horseback ride through the mountains and we took a winding nature trail. We even went through a stream, twice! If it wasn't for the fog, we would've seen the Nicaraguan River.

Getting ready to ride horses.

After the refreshing ride, we were able to help the community. At the mariposario, we planted lantana (milkweed), excavated ant colonies and weeded the gardens around the mariposario.

Searching for milkweed

Successful extraction of invading Atta colony from mariposario.

After a long day out in the town, we were STARVING and ready to learn how to make local cuisine. Thankfully, a local restaurant was kind enough to let us in the kitchen!

Heading out to the local restaurant on our tractor.

Preparing gourmet salads.

Buttering the pan for our veggies.

Enjoying our meal, and each other's company

After that delicious meal, we had a short walk to a light trap, where a wide array of insects were on display.

Insect light trap.

One of the many months at the light trap.

Friday, August 2, 2019

Friday, August 2

We started our day with one of our favorite breakfasts yet. Pancakes with cacao nibs straight from the farm! Today was a big science day for each lab team. In our first session, we did an experiment to determine where in the leaf cutter ant colony the most escovopsis (toxic fungus to leaf cutters) was present. We used potato dextrose agar to grow the fungus so we could answer this experimental question. Next, we began to brainstorm our main research topics for the trip! As individuals, we came up with a variety of questions that could apply to the scientific method that are attainable at Finca La Anita with our time constraints. Then as a group, we decided on our favorite topic to research and began designing our experiments. We researched topics about what types of leaves the leaf cutter ants prefer to consume, behaviors with foreign larvae, and pH levels in their environment. Putting it all together, we made proposal presentations in each group that we will follow to produce results. Dr. Pinto and our peers gave us some helpful feedback during each presentation. Hopefully we will make some cool discoveries!🐜

Outline of our tasks for the day

Group Purple Rain working on their experiment.

Extracting fungus for the agar dishes.

Group Pan working on their experiment.

Jamie working with the petri plates.

Carson sterilizing forceps to extract fungus, avoiding cross-contamination

Labeling petri plates

Moving fungus garden to petri plates for experimentation.

Planning the Google Slides presentation

Group Purple Rain presenting initial research idea for feedback.

Group Pan presenting initial research idea for feedback.

Group Nature SCAN presenting initial research idea for feedback.

Tree frog! (found napping at the finca)

Thursday, August 1, 2019

Thursday 8/1/19

Today we started our leaf cutter ant research. We learned how to properly dig into a leaf cutter ant colony, find the fungus chamber and extract the fungus. We were able to dig and extract a colony ourselves! Each lab group was able to extract a small, young colony from the rainforest floor and bring it back to research. Every group was very lucky and was able to retrieve the queen from each nest they extracted. We had a scrumptious lunch of spaghetti with fresh tomato sauce and homemade garlic bread. The highlight of our day was the trip to Canopy Zip Lining!! We took a steep hike to the top of the course and made our way down on many different ropes. For some of us, this was our first time and we could finally check it off our bucket list. :) On the way back, we stopped at Mariposario Butterfly Conservancy. The room of butterflies was amazing and our favorite kind was the blue Morpho. At the end we stopped at a couple of local gift shops where we could buy jewelry and snacks before we came back to Finca La Anita. We ate dinner and continued our research into the evening.