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Update from the field: Tropical Ecology
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Dan Janzen leads the OTS 11-3 Tropical Ecology course through the dry forest of Santa Rosa.
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After five weeks in the field, the OTS 11-3 graduate Tropical Ecology course is moving to its high elevation site at Cerro de la Muerte. This dynamic group of 20 graduate students and an ever-changing contingent of resource people has ranged over much of Costa Rica, including time spent in Guanacaste dry forests (Palo Verde and Santa Rosa), Pacific mangroves (Tivives), cloud forest (Monteverde), the Pacific coastal zone (Cabo Blanco), and the Caribbean lowlands (La Selva and Bijagual).
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Steve Oberbauer and graduate students Andrea Westerband and Philip Greenspoon working on a faculty-led field problem on the reduction in photosynthesis in the hot afternoon hours at La Selva.
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As always, the intellectual emphasis is on field-based inquiry, creative hypothesis generation and testing, and close interactions with peers and leaders in tropical biology. For this course, a special element of training with advanced-technology
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Cabo Blanco palm seed dispersal project led by Erin Kuprewicz
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instrumentation has been added. At La Selva, students produced independent field projects using an array of equipment provided by the labs of Steven Oberbauer from Floriday International University and Joe O'Brien with the USDA-Forest Service: thermal camera, stomatal-conductance porometer, chlorophyll fluorometer, LI-COR portable photosynthesis system, and spectroradiometers. Special sessions on remote sensing, bacterial PCR techniques, and tropical soils rounded out the experience.
This graduate course is the subject of a documentary film produced by AMI Video.
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Open Positions: Director of the La Selva Biological Station and Education Director
 La Selva Station Director
OTS seeks an outstanding Ph.D.-level biologist for the position of Director of the La Selva Biological Station. The successful candidate will have a record of excellence in management, teaching, and research, with an expectation of continued excellence. The position is one FTE, but couples wishing to share the position are welcome to apply. The position duties include:
- Oversight of the management of the Station and a staff of ~100
- Participating in OTS courses visiting the Station
- Proposal writing and project management
- Interaction and outreach with the local scientific and conservation community
- Establishment of an independent research program
Applicants should submit a curriculum vitae, statements on management philosophy, research, teaching and anticipated contribution to the field station, and names and addresses of four references.
Applicants are encouraged to apply by September 1, 2011, but the search will remain open until the position is filled. Qualified applicants for the Station Director position will have the following qualifications: demonstrated personnel and project management skills; bilingual oral and written abilities in English and Spanish; demonstrated excellence in teaching and research; desire to work with an excellent team at La Selva and OTS, and a vision of moving the station forward as a leading center in tropical science.
To apply: Send your resume here.
Education Director
OTS is seeking applicants for the position of Education Director. The position is based in San José, Costa Rica.
Definition of job position:
The primary responsibility of the Education Director (ED) is to provide leadership and direct all of OTS' education programs in Costa Rica, at the graduate and undergraduate level. The ED takes lead responsibility within the organization for keeping the educational programs vibrant and at the cutting-edge, with the goals of meeting the needs of the OTS consortium and developing/preparing the scientific workforce of tomorrow. The ED reports to the General Director of the Costa Rican OTS office.
Start Date: January 1, 2012 Application deadline: September 1, 2011 (applications will be reviewed as they are received) Click here for more information.
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OTS-GPP Conservation Science Training in Suriname
 With support from the Blue Moon Fund, the OTS Global Partners and Program (GPP) staff has been working with partners in Suriname, the small (ca. 500,000 people, 163,000 Km2) high-forest-cover nation (14.8 M ha) of Northern South America, to develop conservation science training for practical applications within the country. As very few people go on to professional academic careers, there is a great need to provide science training that references the real needs of employers in the government, not-for-profit, and private sectors for collecting, analyzing, and communicating scientific information to inform environmental management in the country.
Suriname has a very rich mineral resource base, particularly gold and bauxite, in addition to its forest base. It is very active in pursuing preparation for Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD), therefore forest carbon is an important theme for many institutions. In January 2011, GPP's Ed Stashko and Andrew Chek collaborated with Conservation International-Suriname to hold a roundtable on science training needs attended by fifteen institutions from government, NGO, the university and research institutes. The top themes from that process included forest carbon, gold mining and biodiversity along with a ranking of necessary skills.With information from parallel meetings with key institutions these rankings were used to develop inputs for a faculty and trainers field workshop to be held in Suriname next month.
During the upcoming workshop, participants will develop the syllabus for a subsequent field course for students and professionals planned for November 2011. The focus will be on a mix of themes and prioritized skills in the context of forest disturbance. Suriname's Anton de Kom University will include the course within the calendar for its new Masters in Conservation program, launched this year. Based on the field reconnaissance done by GPP staff last month, the most likely field sites for the course will be:
- On the concession of a large gold mine (est. revenues of 500,000,000 M/yr, concession size 170 km2) with extensive environmental management of its cyanide-based process. Unregulated (mercury-based) mining also occurs in the same area causing different kinds of environmental impacts to the mixed forest, savanna and river ecosystems.
- A timber concession producing the country's first Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified lumber. This is where permanent plots for carbon monitoring have been established for the country's anticipated REDD program.
Preparations for a parallel process are well advanced in the neighboring country of Guyana. GPP expects to conduct a roundtable to kick off the process in August or September of this year.
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REU Student Published in Insectes Sociaux Journal
Danielle Califano, a 2006 alumna of the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, recently published the results of her study in the Insectes Sociaux Journal. The study was conducted at the La Selva Biological Station under the guidance of her REU mentor, Johel Chaves-Campos. The article was accepted for publication in a special edition of the journal dedicated to the memory of Carl W. Rettenmeyer, a pioneer in the investigation of army ants. Dr. Rettenmeyer reviewed her article, conducted personal research at La Selva and was a member of the OTS Assembly of Delegates from the University of Connecticut.
Effect of trail pheromones and weather on the moving behavior of the army ant Eciton burchellii
Abstract : Most of what we know about the moving behaviour of the nomadic army ant Eciton burchellii comes from Barro Colorado Island (BCI) in Panama. Nomadic colonies raid roughly in straight line during the day and relocate their nests along this path in the evening. At BCI, nomadic colonies raid roughly in the same compass bearing of the previous day, presumably using their pheromone-marked raiding trails as cues to pick directions. Deviations from this direction occur when a nomadic colony fails to move, possibly due to environmental conditions. The generality of these results has been questioned. We studied nomadic colonies of E. burchellii at La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica to evaluate the generality of the results obtained from BCI... Complete abstract here
Insectes Sociaux (2011) 58(39): 309-315, DOI: 10.1007/s00040-010-0140-z
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Robbin Moran Honored with Peter Raven Award
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Photo by Ben Van Ee
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On July 12, Robbin Moran received the Peter Raven Award, given by the American Society of Plant Taxonomists to a plant systematist who has made exceptional efforts at outreach to non-scientists.
The first recipient of the award was Peter Raven in August 2000, followed by Richard C. Harris (2001), Charles Heiser (2002), Frederick W. Case (2003), David J. Mabberley (2004), Alan W. Meerow (2005), Art Kruckeberg (2006), John T. Mickel (2007), W. Hardy Eshbaugh (2008), Sandra Knapp (2009), and Barney Lipscomb (2010).
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Photo by Ben Van
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Robbin C. Moran is one of the world's great experts on ferns and the curator of ferns at the New York botanical garden. He conducts research and teaches the OTS Tropical Plant Systematics course every summer. This course was introduced in 1966 and the Spanish equivalent was launched in 2001. Robbin has coordinated this course in English and Spanish twelve times. As of the summer of 2011, 305 talented young botanists from the US and Latin America will have participated in this program and many have experienced the joy of botany as conveyed by Dr. Moran.
Back in 1967, OTS offered an advanced short course on tropical ferns, coordinated by John Mickel, with unparalleled success. This course trained a significant number of the most outstanding tropical ferns experts of the 20th century. Most recently, Robbin designed and coordinated OTS' second fern course and plans to offer it again in January 2013.
OTS congratulates Dr. Robbin Moran on receiving the well-deserved Peter Raven Award.
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Update from the field: REU at La Selva
By: Jennifer L. Stynoski, REU Coordinator
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REU student Dori Thompson learns unique ways to identify plants in an orientation workshop with La Selva natural history expert, Orlando Vargas. (Photo by: Bud Stracker, REU student)
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Right now, fourteen budding researchers and their mentors are living in the River Station at La Selva during the 8-week Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program. This intense program, in its ninth year at La Selva, challenges 10 students and a teacher from the USA and 3 students from Costa Rica to conduct independent research projects under the one-on-one guidance of an experienced tropical biologist. Students also engage in weekly tropical biology seminars by prominent researchers and ethics training in international research. The program is sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the CRUSA Foundation, which provide travel, station fees, equipment allowance, and stipends.
During the students' first week at the station, they attended orientation workshops in subjects such as writing and presentation skills, plant identification, statistical analysis in R, conversational Spanish, and forest navigation. Since then, students have been hard at work in the field collecting data with the help of their dedicated mentors and are transforming their research proposals into professional scientific manuscripts. While troubleshooting for their field projects, they have rewired infrared video cameras, developed methods to measure giant venomous spiders from a distance, vied with white-faced monkeys threatening to throw projectiles during the final 5 minutes of plant measurements at the back of the property, found innovative ways to use a pressure bomb with large fern leaves, and georeferenced WorldView 2 imagery for use in age class analysis with GIS.
The REUs have manuvered around a puma, fer-de-lances, and bullet ants, had dinner with famous tropical biologists, played mud soccer in a downpour, and improved both their salsa dancing and Costa Rican slang. Strong friendships have formed among REU students as well as with REU mentors, La Selva staff, and other researchers. The list of inside jokes and memorable stories is growing, as are the networking connections that will last through years beyond the program. As the weeks quickly tick away, students are maturing from shaky-kneed, booksmart undergraduate students into confident independent researchers who now proudly explain the significance and preliminary results of their field studies to the veteran researchers at La Selva.
Project topics range from the effects of pesticides and temperature variation on red-eyed treefrog tadpoles to the role of tent bats in germination of rainforest seeds to carbon dynamics between leaf-cutter ants and rainforest soils. These hard working students will present their results at a public research symposium at La Selva on August 3. Additionally, many REU's will present or publish their results in scientific conferences and journals, and the majority of the students will continue on to graduate school and careers in biology and research.
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OTS signs agreement with Korean University
 On Saturday June 14, 2011 the General Director of OTS to Costa Rica, Dr. Liana Babbar and Mr Chung Kyung-Won, Director of the Institute for Green Convergence between Latin America and the Caribbean (ICV-CALC) of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (HUFS), in South Korea signed a bilateral cooperation agreement. OTS and HUFS will cooperate in:
- The scientific and technical exchange of research and teaching in environmental studies.
- Stays of academics TABs in the ICV-CALC HUNFS or vice versa.
- Joint activities through counseling courses, seminars, research projects, and others.
- Provision of facilities for graduate student activities from both institutions.
The Hankuk University of Foreign Studies is located in Seoul, South Korea, was established in 1954 and currently has agreements with 257 universities and educational exchanges in 74 countries around the world. OTS looks forward to collaborating with Hankuk University in the years ahead.
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Environment Month Activities
 On June 17 and 18, the Outreach and Environmental Education Program of Las Cruces Biological Station, held its fourth Eco-cultural Festival. Approximately 200 students and 50 individuals visited the Wilson Botanical Garden, where they received environmental lectures, workshops and educational hikes at trails. The participants enjoyed presentations from the Brunca Indigenous School of Rey Curre, informative stands, donation of trees and live music. OTS would like to thank the following organizations for their support: Coto Brus Municipality, MINAET, ICE, San Vito Bird Club, media, sponsors, private companies and volunteers who made this festival possible.
 Palo Verde Biological Station participated in the 9th Annual Environment Week, organized by the Municipality of Bagaces between June 6th and 10th. In addition to an information stand on the Environment Day, the Palo Verde staff offered educational talks to approximately 150 students from 5 different schools. Rafael Ramirez and Juan Serrano represented OTS and worked in collaboration with colleagues from MINAET.
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Two PhD Scholarships Available at James Cook University
 The Centre for Tropical Environmental Sustainability Science (TESS) at James Cook University is seeking two highly motivated PhD candidates to participate in a study on how to accelerate the restoration of secondary forests to increase their carbon sequestration and biological diversity. The study will be principally focused on the natural regrowth forest in tropical northeastern Australia. The work will involve the collection of data primarily from field surveys supported by controlled experiments. The prospective students will join a large and dedicated team of scientists and students working in the field of tropical conservation biology with projects and experience from all over the world. Potential candidates must have completed a four-year undergraduate degree (H1 of H2A), or equivalent such as a Masters degree with a major research component. Other research experience, publications and relevant work experience will be considered favorably.
The projects will commence between November 2011 - January 2012 and funding will continue for 3 years. Scholarships of $27,000 (AUD) per year are available (tax-free). The scholarships are prestigious Australian Postgraduate Award Industry (APAI) grants funded through an Australia Research Council Linkage Grant to Dr Susan Laurance, Professor William Laurance, Dr Rod Fensham, Dr Miriam Goosem, Dr Steve Goosem and Dr Noel Preece. All interested students are encouraged to contact Dr Susan Laurance (susan.laurance@jcu.edu.au) or Dr Miriam Goosem (miriam.goosem1@jcu.edu.au) by October 30, 2011.
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