An overall recap of the events of La Cruces. Our classeroom is in Casa Wilson.

We began our lessons with an overview of safety and risk mitigation while we where here. Our first lecture was called “Dangerous and annoying creatures” Bottom line, use common sense if you want to not get messed up out here. Sometimes however, common sense is overridden by our overall excitement. I should never have told my classmates I was EMS certified, I have been the “lifeguard” of the group once so far.

Out in the rain forest, always bring a flashlight, it is quite dark in the understory during the day and the sun sets at 6pm. The most dangerous things out here are either self-induced or microbial. Drink water a lot. Don’t let mosquitoes bite, but you will be bitten by mosquitoes. Snakes and spiders are simple to avoid, don’t antagonize them. These are the fundamentals of being a tropical biologist.

Taxonomy:

My first taxonomy course was on Arthopodia, the familiar orders are Arachnea, Crustecea, and Insecta. Insecta are the largest group by far in both number of species and number of individuals. Our American born professor, Erika Deinert, gave a lecture on her specialty, Lepidoptera. The takeaway from her lecture was that definitive identification of a species in the whole order requires DNA testing, not a tool I can use in the field at this point. I was surprised to learn that a particular family specializes on fermenting fruits and can actually get “drunk”. Videos on Youtube show them with listing wings and fly up for a few moments and collapse back down.

Our first homework assignment is to collect different specimens  from these groups and identify their order and family using observations of their anatomy. This week we will begin plant taxonomy and meet with a “crazy” biologist who will teach us his methods of identification.

Finally, it is important to understand that the structure of the tropical forest is complex. The trees here do not grow nearly as tall as sequoias or as old as bristlecone pines, and there is no clear definition of where the understory ends or the canopy begins. All lifeforms here take advantage of one another, and the coevolutionary arms race has always been “hot”. There is a lot of desperation in balance here, which I think that desperation is one factor that yields the biodiversity here.