Day 10: 9/4/2009

Today began with all of us waking up in the morning and eating breakfast at our apartments in the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute's (STRI) housing building in Gamboa. After meeting up for some healthy granola and fruit, we all headed over to our own personal research facility, a.k.a. Steve and Patty's house. After some quick announcements about the weekends events, we all began to examine the flies collected from the previous two days. After only looking at two of the over 20 vials filled with flies, Doug and Alec encountered a group of male flies that could not be identified using the keys we normally used for identification. Teri, who is the fly expert of the group, couldn't positively identify them either, and so we took some pictures and sent them to the Drosophila Stock Center back at UCSD to be identified. This was extremely exciting because it may mean that we have encountered a very rare, unknown, or completely new species.

We all went back to our apartments at lunch time to make some quick sandwiches and prepare baits for hanging that afternoon. Taking two cars, we ventured into Pipeline Road much further than we had the previous time we went. We crossed narrow wooden bridges over small murky rivers and drove through narrow roads so thick and lush with plants that we could not drive without scraping the car along palm fronds and foliage from trees that lined the side of the road. After about six miles, we turned around and began trying to find suitable places to hang baits.

We soon realized that placing baits would be the least of our worries. Alec noticed at the first bait hanging stop that the front right tire on one of the cars was making a loud hissing sound and leaking air. We continued to drive to see if we could make it back but it became clear that the tire was loosing air too fast to make it back. We had to stop on the small dirt road to change it....

Luckily, Alec had some experience in changing tires. Working under an increasing darkening and thunderous sky, he worked with Joel and Doug to quickly jack the car up, remove the bad tire, and replace it with the spare. Just as we finished, it began to rain. We all got back into the cars and drove back down the road. Our luck changed at the end when one car heard the loud calls of howler monkeys over the sound of the rainstorm. Although we didn't see them, we had more confidence that we might see some monkeys before the trip ended.

After relaxing back at the apartments, we headed over to the house in Gamboa at 5 pm to hear an interesting speciation lecture by Teri. She discussed the current thoughts of how the process in which new species are created, as well as filling us in with projects worked on by her and her lab. We then discussed a research paper by Sarah Pipkin about two Panamanian fruit fly species. After a long and eventful day, we returned to our apartments to get some much needed sleep.

Day 8 & 9: 9/2/09 & 9/3/09

Day 8:

Today was a very productive day! We accomplished the drive back to El Valle from Boquete and still had time to collect most of our baits. We were thrilled to find that each one of the baits in the pine area had more than all of our previous baits combined! We took our time walking through the tropical habitats, hiking up a river lined by ivy and moss covered boulders. We were all jealous of Andrea’s rainboots as she walked effortlessly through the river; we grasped weak vines for support on the shallow banks, observing brightly colored dragonflies and trying to catch lizards. Absorbing our surroundings, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves as we collected our remaining baits.  

  

We brought our specimens home with us and took turns aspirating, taking a food break in the middle. We enjoyed Peruvian cuisine with the professors for lunch and patronized an Italian restaurant called Bruschetta for dinner. Bellies full, we returned to our flies at home, some of us staying up until 1am aspirating them into vials. Some of us are increasing our tolerance for that fermented banana smell and taste. Yum, yum!

Here are some photos of our view from the pine area in El Valle:

 

Until our next adventure,

STRI techs of Panama

Day 9:

We had a wonderful morning. Excited to greet the El Vallan Drospholids first thing, we collected the baits around the hotel that we had placed 4 days prior. The flies put up a fight, but we aspirated them into vials and left our homey B&B for the market. We all enjoyed seeing the handmade crafts, especially watching one man intricately paint a giraffe onto a bird feather. We quickly bought trinkets for family and friends at home (hola familia y amigos!) and some produce for the drive ahead of us.  

Through the rain and pink lightning, we arrived in Gamboa and settled into our Smithsonian housing. Spoiled at two per apartment with stocked kitchens and full bathrooms, we only find ourselves grumbling about the lack of air conditioning in 80% humidity.  No complaints though, we're having fun!

Terri took us to an amazing market filled with both local treasures and cheesy tourist buys. Need a hammock? Pick a pattern, any color, varying qualities. A panama hat? What size my friend, we have every size. Elaborate wooden carvings of exotic fauna, tradition fabric weavings, miniature nativity scenes whittled into giant seeds... We shopped to our hearts' content and left in search of food. We finally arrived at a truly authentic Panamanian restaurant. After consuming our big macs and mcnuggets, we returned to our housing and settled in.  

Tonight we discussed a 1993 Journal of Animal Ecology paper titled "A life history trade-off in Drosophila species and community structure in variable environments" by Sevenster and Van Alphen. Over our nachos and card games, the students theorized amongst ourselves about the advantages and disadvantages of characters like development time and opportunities for reproduction.  

Write to you tomorrow!

-The coolest kids in Panama