Fishing on Little River... Old Knoxville Highway to Sweet Pea's

 

Last Weekend before students go back to school

 A quick paddle up Panther Creek with Bailey :)

Date Night at Meade's Quarry

 Date Night trying out standup paddleboards at Meade's Quarry. 

Fer de lance

We came across a fer de lance (bothrops asper), sometimes referred to as "the ultimate pit viper" on the waterfall trail tonight. This is Central America's second most venemous snake... The fer de lance utilizes a necrotic venom, so if you want to see some gruesome pictures, do a google image search for "fer de lance bite."

Cicada Emerging

Here's a video of a cicada emerging taken during the night hike on the waterfall trail tonight. 

Night Hike 7-6-14

https://plus.google.com/photos/101516877291483077682/albums/6033170773933127249?authkey=CNuXzPvm6a-c1wE

Red-eyed tree frogs gettin'  their axillary amplexus on

Parachute red eyed tree frog

Glass frog

emerald basilisk

Methods: Camera Traps, Hair Traps, Vegetation Surveys

Methods: Camera Traps, Hair Traps, Vegetation Surveys

Camera Traps

Camera traps are set out on landowner properties and checked on approximately 3-6 week cycles. The camera takes color photos during the day (set on a 5 second delay after motion and heat activated) and black and white photos at night using infrared lighting.
The cameras are placed on game trails that at approximately knee height facing the open movement corridor of the trail. Care is taken to place the cameras out of sight to reduce the threat of theft.




Hair Traps

 Hair traps are set either independently or in conjunction with the camera traps. The traps are made by putting 10 barbed nails into a numbered carpet square (approx. 6"x6").

Sample carpet square

 The squares are tacked up at or below knee height to trees adjacent to paths or manways on the PES properties in the study. The traps are placed at least 20 meters apart. A GPS waypoint is taken and UTM grid coordinates are recorded and the tree is tagged with fluorescent marking tape to help in recovering the trap.

Super-scientific mammal attractant

Vegetation Surveys

Vegetatation surveys are conducted to determine a few things about the PES program. They give a summary of the makeup of the habitat found on the PES properties, they help correlate habitats to mammals identified in the area, and it helps to verify that the properties receiving payment for through PES are actually reforesting or protecting the forest as required. 

Making a game plan for setting up a vegetation plot.

To set up a vegetation trap, a 100 square meter plot is laid out. A corner tree is chosen, and a 10 meter cord is run at a 90 degree at tied off on another tree, branch, or post. This is repeated for each of the four sides of the square. Next, all of the trees within the plot with a diameter greater than 10cm at breast height are flagged. Flagged trees are measured for DBH (diameter at breast height), GPS coordinates are recorded (UTM zone, northing and easting coordinated), and height is estimated by measuring the angle to top of tree and to the bottom of the tree using a clinometer and a rangefinder to determine distance to the tree.

6 July 2014 -- So What Are We Doing Here?

We started off our first official morning here with one of mother nature's alarm clocks... a 4.9 earthquake centered about 30 miles to the west. Sleeping on the top bunk was great, because what woke me up was the swaying of the bed. Apparently I wasn't too concerned, because after Shawn put into words that it was an earthquake, my response was "Oh, okay," and went back to sleep. 

The morning was spent in orientation discussing the the scope and objectives of our research project here, including the main methods of our data collection.

For background, Costa Rica has been administering a Payment for Environmental Services Program (PES) since 1997. The main premise of the program is that the government will make preservation, reforestation, and agroforestry a priority by paying landowners to either protect their forest areas or to reforest previously logged areas. The four main goals of this project are watershed protection, biodiversity protection, carbon sequestration, and protection of the country's scenic beauty. Funding for this program flows into the government from fuel taxes, and the government gives the money to NGOs to administer on the ground. Money from the NGOs goes to landowners and to the technicians the NGOs commission to determine program eligibility, land rights, etc.

Starting in 2006, it became clear to the Costa Rican government that the plan needed to have greater focus in order to be more efficient. According, they began focusing PES funds on creating and maintaining Biological Corridors, privately owned areas that serve as buffer zones between nationally protected areas. 

Keeping that background in mind, there two primary objectives of the research project in progress at the Soltis Center:

• determining if the PES policies favorably influence land use in the biological corridors by creating additional forested habitat, specifically, the project is focused on the Paso de las Nubes Biological Corridor, in which the Soltis Center is located.
• determining if medium to large mammals are utilizing the corridors

The three methods for determining the efficacy of PES projects involve vegetation plots, hair traps, and game camera traps, and interviews with landowners or land managers/occupants.

Using the data gathered from these sources, the project aims to determine the efficacy of the corridors, create a dispersal resistance map showing species occupancy data, and developing landscape modeling projections showing relationships between cost values and biodiversity values. 

!Pura Vida! July 4 in Costa Rica

 Shawn and I flew up a day early, rented a car, drove to the Pacific Ocean, and grabbed our first Imperials of the trip. I'm hoping the Tico's can keep up their World Cup run...that would make for a great time I'm sure!