June 2023

Welcome to the OTS newsletter for our community! Our goal is to stay connected, announce news, provide updates, and share memories. If you would like to contribute in any way, please contact us.

Stay connected to students and researchers in the tropics. Get social with OTS!

Series of Conferences: OTS 60 Anniversary

OTS 60th anniversary “Series of Conferences” is an opportunity to reconnect with others in the OTS community and to share research findings, experiences with OTS courses, and other topics.

Recent talks in this series include Dr. Rafael Muñoz Carpena (University of Florida and member of the OTS Board of Directors), who reviewed the impactful research conducted in his lab on the hydrology of the wetlands of Palo Verde National Park. Check the stream on Facebook or download it here. 

We also heard from Dr. Mario Blanco Coto (University of Costa Rica) about the history of the Botanical Gardens of Costa Rica, highlighting OTS’ Wilson Botanical Garden at Las Cruces Research Station. You can watch his presentation on Facebook or download the full video on Zoom. (Presented in Spanish)

B.Sc. Alejandra Pérez-Enríquez, OTS alumna and collaborator, presented about the Participative Ecological Restoration in La Selva and neighboring communities in Sarapiquí, Heredia, Costa Rica. Watch the stream on Facebook or download the full video here. (Presented in Spanish)

The July speaker will be M.Sc. Sylvia Valentinuzzi from Transition to an Urban Green Economy (TEVU), a UNDP Project with which OTS is collaborating. Please register now to attend this talk to be held on July 12 (1pm PDT/3pm CDT/4pm EDT). 

Don't miss future presentation of the OTS 60th anniversary “Series of Conferences!” Follow us on Facebook for the latest updates and notifications.

Environmental Education Gathering in Costa Rica

(Photo: Nina Cordero)

On May 3, OTS' administrative office in San José, Costa Rica, was the meeting point for the Environmental Education Gathering: Urban Experiences. The event was organized by OTS, Environmental Education Center from Universidad Estatal a Distancia (CEA UNED), and Transition to an Urban Green Economy (TEVU). It was an activity for exchange, sharing experiences related to environmental education in urban and suburban areas, and building a collaboration network.

More than 50 people participated, representing local governments, nonprofit organizations, civil society organizations, universities, the Ministry of Education, and the Conservation Areas Authority, among others. Throughout the event, participants were able to identify strengths, limitations, needs, suggestions, and key topics to focus on related to environmental education. Moreover, this meeting allowed the group to combine independent and well-known efforts to create synergies for the future. 

We are now working on the next steps for this huge network to shine bright and continue to look for ways to connect the people with the tropics for the future of our planet. 

Las Cruces to renew the pollinator garden

(Photo: Wagner López)

Last January, OTS started implementing a new project that aims to promote the importance of ornamental gardens for pollinator species. The project “Promoting the Beauty of Pollinator Plants” will take place at Las Cruces Research Station and Wilson Botanical Garden, thanks to a generous donation from the Stanley Smith Horticultural Trust.

The funding enables OTS to redesign the pollinator garden using native species that will attract insects and other animals and improve ecosystem services (or, the concrete benefits people receive from nature). The pollinator garden will be an important educational resource for visitors. As a first step, the team has been identifying the species that need to be removed or relocated as well as selecting the new group of species to be brought in and planted. 

In line with OTS educational goals, this project will also develop materials to promote the importance of pollinator gardens and produce guides for maintenance of these unique resources. We will create a digital library for ornamental and pollinator plants, based on a citizen science approach, where visitors will have the opportunity to contribute to building a public database. These products will be highlighted in a series of workshops to develop capacity for visitors interested in these topics.

We expect to have this garden ready for visitors by next December.

Reforestation Project at Las Cruces Research Station: a joint effort between PRFRP and OTS

(Photo: Branko Hilje)

In September 2022, OTS began the reforestation of an approximately three-hectare section of land at Las Cruces Research Station, which was used as pasture for cattle ranching in the past. This is a joint effort between the Pierella Rainforest Reclamation Project (PRFRP) and OTS.

The recovery process adopted reforestation methodologies used in the past by researchers collaborating with OTS in Las Cruces. This includes native tree species donated by other organizations in the region associated with the project. In June of this year, the second stage of this reforestation was carried out with close partnership between PRFRP and OTS, along with local organizations and friends of Las Cruces.

This is a long-term project combining ecological, educational, academic, and ecosystem services components.

Enroll now: Disease Ecology and Wildlife Management, Spring 2024

(Photo: Liezl Retief)

Our summer Disease Ecology and Wildlife Management practicum is currently hard at work in the field. The program started in Pretoria, where the group visited Onderstpoort – the only veterinary campus in South Africa, Maropeng, a genetics sequencing lab at the University of Pretoria, and Freedom Park. Now in the field, the students have begun the process of setting rodent traps and processing rodents. In their first few days in the field, they caught nine rodents in total, took their measurements, combed them for ectoparasites, and took blood spots. They also set up camera traps and did tick drags at the same sites. Next, the students will be morphologically identifying the ticks (and hopefully other ectoparasites) using microscopes at SSLI. After identification, they will extract DNA from both the ectoparasites and the blood spots and screen them for haemoparasites using conventional PCRs. They will also use conventional PCRs to determine the species identifications of Mastomys coucha and M. natalensis, two cryptic species which are morphologically indistinguishable from each other. These Mastomys species are known carriers of a range of potentially zoonotic bacteria, so distinguishing between them is vital for any disease-ecology-related study.

Applications are currently open for our Spring 2024 semester program. If you know of any great students looking to spend a semester gaining fieldwork experience, please reach out to Ian Crowell.

Check out our science!

(Photo: Laurence Kruger)

OTS research stations are vibrant hubs for discovery and building knowledge about tropical and subtropical systems. This selection of research papers showcases the breadth and depth of science being conducted by the OTS community. Please send us your suggestions for research items to include in future issues of e-Canopy.

How does climate predict the distribution of major vegetation types in tropical and subtropical Africa? Laurence Kruger (OTS Director of Curriculum and Director, South Africa) and colleagues (Higgins et al. 2023) used climate suitability models based on vegetation plot data for more than 9,000 plant species to assess the effect of spatial variation in climate. The models predicted both fine- and large-scale vegetation patterns, resulting in little evidence for alternative ecosystem states. The authors suggest that these findings indicate the impact of climate change on the spatial distribution of forest and savanna vegetation types may be highly predictable.

Lessons learned from 20+ years of natural forest regeneration projects. Chazdon et al. (2023) reviewed data from forest regeneration plots monitored over a 20-year period in the region surrounding La Selva Research Station. A key recommendation was that studies that sample only using small (1 ha) plots may miss a significant number of tree species that occur within local tree assemblages. The authors documented temporal instability in species composition during the first 20-50 years of forest regeneration. These findings suggest that practitioners and researchers should carefully select the metrics used to assess recovery and should establish reference plots in old-growth forest (where possible). Further, the authors recommend that for effective monitoring of restoration projects based on assisted regeneration or tree planting restoration, practitioners should focus on monitoring common species in large plots with complementary non-plot-based sampling for rare species of high conservation interest. Silvicultural intervention may be necessary during forest recovery. The authors urge monitoring of other functional biota, particularly symbiotic organisms such as soil microbiota, pollinators, and seed dispersers.

Can patterns of species interactions in today’s forests help interpret species interactions in the past? Azevedo-Schmidt et al. (2023) applied paleo-botanical methods for assessing spatial variability of species interactions to data from three modern forests (including La Selva). The authors found that methods used to analyze herbivory patterns in fossil landscapes held up when applied to existing forests, providing validation of paleo-botanical methods. This finding provides a way to compare the effects of herbivory in modern and fossil forests, which in turn might be used to investigate how climate change may affect species interactions. 

New species after all these years: “Arthropods of La Selva” (ALAS) project continues to yield findings. A new genus and 16 new species of click beetles were among the more than 1,300 specimens of Eucnemidae collected from Heredia Province, Costa Rica, during the 1990s Arthropods of La Selva (ALAS) survey. The specimens, studied from 2018 through 2022, were described by Otto et al. (2023).

Short-term resource depletion did not cause changes in hummingbird behavior or abundance. In a study based at Las Cruces Research Station, researchers from the Betts Forest Landscape Ecology Lab at Oregon State University tested the prediction that species loss may trigger coextinction cascades. The researchers experimentally removed a hummingbird-pollinated plant (Heliconia tortuosa) from test plots in forest fragments and then monitored hummingbird behavior and abundance. Although H. tortuosa is an important floral resource and locally abundant, the researchers did not detect shifts in resource use by the hummingbird community during the time period of this study (Leimberger et al. 2023).

Long-term data collection is needed to understand stress responses in neotropical birds. Gonzalez-Gomez and colleagues (2023) reviewed stress response in neotropical birds, specifically exploring variation of glucocorticoid concentrations in multiple species over a wide geographic distribution with several data sets collected at both La Selva and Las Cruces research stations. The authors highlighted the need to focus greater effort on long-term data collection in the neotropics.

Temporal changes in genetic diversity in a solitary tropical bee species. Suni and Hernandez (2023) quantified spatial patterns of dispersal and genetic diversity over time in populations of the solitary bee species Euglossa championi located across a mix of landscape use types near Las Cruces Research Station. The authors did not detect an effect of deforestation on bee dispersal rates but did find a decrease in population genetic diversity over time, suggesting that monitoring of this species for conservation assessment might be warranted.

How is the water in the Binational Basin of the Sixaola River?

(Photo: Manuel Sancho)

Agrochemical pollution of water is a priority problem in the Binational Basin of the Sixaola River. For decades, inhabitants, communities, and organizations of Talamanca and Changuinola have called attention to the crisis due to abuse of agrochemicals.

Studies concluded that the greatest pollution is caused by monoculture of the banana. More data about the water quality in the Sixaola Basin is essential to determine the actions necessary to change this unsustainable production model.

The Project Connecting Communities and Ecosystems performs pesticide waste analysis on samples of different bodies of water on both sides of the border along the Basin.

In Panama, samples were taken in the Changuinola and San San rivers in communities such as Las Delicias, and, in Costa Rica, samples were taken by the Regional Institute of Studies in Toxic Substances of the National University (IRET).

Water samples were taken in Panama with support from the Ministry of Agricultural Development (MIDA), and they will be analyzed in the MIDA Plant Health Laboratory. Also, the Institute of National Aqueducts and Sewers (IDAAN) will analyze the physicochemical parameters of the water:

• Dissolved solids
• Conductivity
• Salinity
• pH
• Color
• Bacteriological analysis
• Total coliforms

Now, the results must be disseminated.

Early warning system for flood detection

The Project is developing an early warning system for the Sixaola Basin. For it to be successful, more infrastructure is needed to generate and share real-time data on increase of discharge and other changes in the river.

Meteorological stations will be installed in Gavilán Canta, in the Cabécar Indigenous Territory, and Sepeque, in the Bribri Indigenous Territory, along with another station in Panama. Local authorities in the indigenous territories have already agreed to coordinate the process.

To improve risk management, a hydrological station will be installed in Orochico, on the Telire River, and geospatial inputs will be monitored, such as bathymetry (a measurement of the corrugation of the river bed in the basin). These measurements will help the team predict flooding events and to respond to them more quickly.

Support for the early warning system must come from those most affected – the people. In coordination with local authorities, the Project has activated 14 communal emergency committees in Costa Rica, involving 42 communities, and 19 committees in Panama are underway.

The Project coordinates with authorities of both countries: the National Emergency Commission (CNE) and the National Meteorological Institute, in Costa Rica, and the National Civil Protection System and the Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology of Panama (IMHPA).

You can follow the Project Connecting Communities and Ecosystems on its website, Facebook and Instagram.

Las Cruces Open House in commemoration of World Environment Day

(Photo: Urpi Castañeda)

Another successful Open House at Las Cruces! The Las Cruces environmental festival began in 2008 with the aim of making communities aware of what happens in and around the station in relation to the protection and study of the environment.

On Saturday, June 3, this traditional celebration was held in commemoration of World Environment Day. Local and international visitors enjoyed a variety of activities, such as traditional games, a market for local entrepreneurs, samples of research project presentations, natural history guided walks in several languages, workshops to learn about specific topics, donation of native tree species seedlings, collection of recoverable waste, folk dances, live music, and delicious meals.

The day is a tradition in the area surrounding the station.

The Open House Day is made possible by the participation of our neighbors, and also by the collaborators, volunteers, and allies who have supported us over the years for this celebration day. We are grateful for your participation and generosity to make this event a success.

Costa Rica Adventure with Organization for Tropical Studies

Guest contributor: Pablo Muñoz, OTS Education Coordinator and Tour Leader

(Photo: Pablo Muñoz)

In May, OTS sponsored a week-long trip to southern Costa Rica. I was fortunate enough to join the trip as OTS Tour Leader. As we gathered on the first night and started chatting about this and that, totally unplanned, I knew this was going to be a great group with which to travel – so many backgrounds, so many past experiences, so many stories, and all of them with expectations of new memories to collect from southern Costa Rica.

We had one thing in common: OTS and passion about the tropics. I was glad to share the trip with former scientists who attended the OTS fundamentals course, Tropical Biology: An Ecological Approach, back in the 70s. Seeing them take notes, observe, ask, and comment about when they were on their course (but now with a lot more experience) was truly meaningful to me and a reminder that our curiosity and eagerness to learn never ends and can keep us interested in our surroundings.

I learned a bit from everyone and felt privileged to be able to talk and engage with them on this trip, which began in the highlands of Costa Rica at Savegre Lodge. This was our first stop, and our first "awe moment" came the next morning with the sighting of a beautiful male Resplendent Quetzal (Pharomachrus mocinno) by the restaurant. This event definitely set the bar quite high and difficult to surpass. Later that day, we moved to the Las Cruces Research Station in San Vito, our headquarters for the next two days. During that time, we learned about coffee production and sustainability efforts on coffee farms. The highlight of this portion of the trip was an awesome night walk with Jeisson Figueroa, Nature Guide and eBird reviewer. So many critters were hidden from our inexperienced eye, but he easily found them. The experience was made more wonderful with Jeisson’s natural history knowledge and stories.

We then traveled to the southernmost region of Costa Rica, the Península de Osa (or, La Osa as locals refer to it). This was my first time here, a unique place with biodiversity intense as it can be. Every moment was even greater than the previous one. Birds, mammals, fungi, insects, and an incredible tower at Osa Conservation – and three Turquoise Cotingas (Cotinga ridgwayi), just to say something. For me, and most of the participants, the best memory that we took from the trip was when the local guide told us, “Wait a moment here. I will check on something.” He came back and asked us to follow him. Five minutes later, we saw a male Central American Tapir (Tapirus bairdii). That was impressive! But then, a mother with her calf passed in front of us on their routine morning walk out of the creek and into the forest. That memory will be kept by all of us and will become one of our stories to tell in the future.

Big thanks to:

Participants: David Wolfe, Richard Griffith, Margaret Perham, Sharon Lee Belkin, Larry Klotz, Thomas Wentworth, Linda Rudd, Michelle Ayres, Raymond Ayres

OTS Staff: Emilce Ramírez, James Boyle, Carlos Silva, Rodolfo Quirós

Pedro León (Former OTS Board of Directors President), Erick Guzmán (Holbrook Tour Guide), and Sandy Schmidt (Holbrook Travel)

An OTS 60th Anniversary Tour

This year marks the 60th Anniversary of OTS in Costa Rica. It is also the year where you will have a unique opportunity to visit all three OTS Stations – the remote and rugged Palo Verde Research Station in northern Costa Rica, the lush Las Cruces Research Station in southern Costa Rica and home of the historic Wilson Botanical Garden, and, of course, the iconic La Selva Research Station, OTS’ flagship facility in central Costa Rica. For more information about each station, please visit: OTS Research Stations.

This exclusive Costa Rican adventure will feature early morning bird walks, a chocolate tour, evening walks with OTS-trained naturalists, an astronomy tour, coffee farm tours, and time to meet OTS staff.

Tour Details

• December 4-15, 2023
• Group Size: 16 people
• Cost: $2,925
• Deposit of $500 due on October 1, 2023

For more information, please contact Jim Boyle. We hope you can join us!

Why We Need Biological Stations

As planetary carbon dioxide (CO₂) levels rise, a critical question is how increased CO₂ levels will affect plant growth. The expectation is that plant growth will increase. But by how much? And will tropical forest growth rates match those of temperate forests where nutrients are more readily available? 

At La Selva, Dr. Cecilia M. Prada Cordero is in the midst of a year-long study on the effects increased CO₂ levels will have on tree growth. While this area is well-studied, most research occurs in temperate forests or greenhouses. These studies lack many inputs in “real-life” tropical forest conditions.

In early 2023, Dr. Prada Cordero built eight refrigerator-sized, open-top chambers within La Selva’s protected forest. She seeded the chambers to produce ten specimens each of six plant species. During daylight hours, CO₂ is injected into the chambers in amounts that simulate the increased levels expected in coming years.

After one year, the plants will be harvested, dried, and weighed. Dr. Prada Cordero will then compare the CO₂-supplemented plants to control specimens. Hopefully, her results will shed light on the effect increasing CO₂ levels have on tropical plant growth. Dr. Prada Cordero’s experiment will be one of a few (and perhaps the only study) conducted within a tropical forest and where the below-ground processes of the plant are also evaluated.

Given the obstacles, the shortage of in situ research is no surprise. Providing continual power for the monitoring and CO₂ injection systems, coping with falling branches, curious animals, and abnormal rain or wind events are all significant challenges – and there are many more.

Only at research stations can you leave thousands of dollars worth of equipment in a tropical forest for months at a time. And La Selva is one of the few tropical stations with technical support, lab space, a library, internet access, and accommodation available to researchers. In fact, Dr. Prada Cordero’s research is precisely the kind of work the station was designed to facilitate.

Dr. Prada Cordero expects to publish results in February 2024, and we will look forward to seeing them!

Your help allows the station to provide the resources and infrastructure researchers need! To contribute, click here.

Our Contact Information
*{{Organization Name}}*
*{{Organization Address}}*
*{{Organization Phone}}*
*{{Organization Website}}*

*{{Unsubscribe}}*