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Oklahoma |
| Field Season 2002 an occasional online journal. | |
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21 June 2002 |
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 Barro
Colorado National Monument (BCNM) includes BCI and its surrounding
peninsulas (read "ridgetops" in days gone by). One
such peninsula, Gigante, is the home of much of our research this
summer. Gigante is the home of a number of "big" experiments in
tropical ecology. These include the irrigation of extensive areas of
forest during that effectively nullify the harsh 4 month dry season, and
building of huge fences that keep out vertebrate herbivores in order to
explore the effect of these animals on the diversity of trees. I
am collaborating with Dr.'s Joe Wright (of STRI), Kyle Harms (Louisiana
State University) and Joe Yavitt (Cornell) on an equally ambitious
project: the fertilization of forest plots, 40 m on a side, to explore
how nutrients limit the growth and diversity of organisms in a tropical
forest (the yellow rectangle).
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 So
BCNM can be thought of as a series of peninsulas (and hence
research projects) arranged like spokes around BCI's center. Not
suprisingly, a common mode of transport around BCNM is the motorboat.
We ride "Number 12", powered by a truly boss silver, 4 cycle engine.
Mary, myself, Kyle and Eileen Thorson (Kyle's assistant this summer)
ride in style, roaring out of the field station's harbor at 6:00 AM. At
this hour, the sun is just rising (remember, near the equator, the days
and nights are pretty much 12 hours long). Given the amount of
concrete, which holds the tropical heat through the night, it is often
warm and sticky around the dock, especially when your wearing a life
jacket. But once we enter the canal lane the breeze is luscious. Also
quite invigorating is the traffic in the canal. This being the Panama
canal and all, we share the lanes with much much larger vessels.
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 We
swing south, leave the canal lanes, and wind our way through the gap
between the Gigante Peninsula to the south and BCI to the North.
We carefully follow the narrow lanes that map the channel. The
channels are followed religiously since the very trees that make the
tropical forest the spectacular thing it is, stand as drowned corpses in
the waters of lake Gatun. A collision with a tropical hardwood
corpse at 20 mph can destroy a propeller, if not worse. And its a
long paddle back to the island.
We slow and head south through narrowing channels. The water is choked with plants, and large turtles and caimans (serious speed bumps) lie just below the surface. Since in the tropics its "hard to see the forest for the trees", gliding along these channels is a great opportunity to examine the forest as a whole. |
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 As
the boat slides up the mud bank, Kyle jumps out with the rope, tugs the
boat even higher, and ties the boat to a tree. We climb out,
shoulder our field gear, and head up the muddy trail, into the forest.
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