Day 6: 8/31/09: Boquete

The main focus of the activities of today was to help us on the path to being able to accurately collect data discerning the Drosophila flies as well as using that data collected to greater understand the biodiversity of the Drosophila fly throughout Panama. This morning began with a discussion of the three aforementioned papers by Dr. Sarah Pipkin on Drosophila populations and diversity in the neo-tropical regions of Panama. From our observations in the previous days of setting baits to collect flies we were able to see the significance of the work that Dr. Pipkin performed in relation to the data our group will be collecting throughout the remainder of our trip. After the discussion had been completed the students began to construct more baits to set up by the Chiriqui River that runs through the city of Boquete. After crossing an old dilapidated cable bridge, which you can see in a picture below, we proceeded to set the baits at different sites along the river varying the distance from the river, ranging from on the river bank to approximately 100 yards from the water’s edge, as well as the variety in general habitat in which the bait was hung, which included rocky area, a pine tree grove, a banana tree grove and lush tall grasses. Below are some pictures of us crossing the bridge as well as placing the baits along the river.

We took a break after the placing the baits down by the river to go to the “supermercado” and buy ingredients for our lunch of nachos and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We came back to our cottage to eat our lunch and prepare for our afternoon of data collection. Following lunch Dr. Hubbell gave a lecture explaining Fisher’s Alpha, which is the fundamental biodiversity number that can make an accurate estimation of the number of species in an area based on the number of species collected correlated to the number of individuals found in the area. We spent the afternoon practicing our comprehension of Fisher’s Alpha on the Drosophila fly data in Dr. Pipkin’s papers so that we will be able to apply that knowledge to our data from the baits that we have placed across the country.

For dinner tonight we went to a small local restaurant in downtown Boquete which was a great experience. It was a buffet style meal so that we were able to sample many different kinds of Panamanian foods as well interact with the locals. After dinner we headed back to begin our work of collecting baits we had placed around the cottages to see if there was any variances in the flies collected around the house in Gamboa. We were able to find significant changes in numbers of certain species but there was little variance in the species present. Hopefully the data that will be collected tomorrow from the additional baits placed in Volcan Baru National Park will give us a better sample exhibiting a wider range of species of Drosophila.