I had the pleasure of conducting my research at Piro Biological Station in the Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica. I was there to look at foraging ecology in howler monkeys (Alouatta palliata), specifically I was trying to see if they deplete preferred patches of food. At this field site there are four species of primates: Central American Squirrel Monkey (Saimiri oerstedii)
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Okay, so this is a bit of a personal post. I realized in my most recent trip to Costa Rica that the friendships formed in the field have all lasted. So, it really got me thinking about why. Let me first explain what the field is like for me. In both locations that I’ve done fieldwork (Panama and Costa Rica),
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So here I am in beautiful Costa Rica, doing my best to finish this post before the power goes out! I thought I would make this a personal post describing my time here. I arrived in Costa Rica on June 15th to assist in the DANTA field school for two weeks before beginning data collection for my thesis on July
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Many economists and politicians speculate about the merits of free trade and fair trade. Although both approaches are focused on a comprehensive plan for commercial activity, they are founded by very different perspectives. Free trade is focused on breaking down barriers between countries and removing preferential policies that favor specific countries or industries. Free traders believe that a business should
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What is a Citizen Naturalist? Citizen naturalists are people concerned about the environment who choose to become involved to help on both a local and national level. Anyone can be a citizen naturalist. You just have to have a passion for nature and an interest in helping your community. These can be simple tasks like cleaning up water sources, educating
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These days there are so many types of travel, especially as we become more involved in trying to sustain the environment. I’m providing information here to help you be an educated traveler. This first one is the big one: ECO-TOURISM. The International Ecotourism Society defines it as “responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment, sustains the well-being of
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Various media sources are full of “global warming” references, while some prefer “climate change”. Global warming seems to have a much bigger impact in our minds as images of a scorching-hot Earth filters through our conscience. So what is the difference? According to NASA global warming is “a gradual increase in the average temperature of Earth’s surface” (NASA, accessed 2015).
Read moreA Quick Refresher of Species Concepts: 1. Biological Species Concept (Mayr) A species = “A group of actually or potentially interbreeding natural populations which are reproductively isolated from other such groups” (Source) Advantages: – Objective, testable criteria Disadvantages: – Applies to only sexually-reproducing species – Hard to test for populations that don’t overlap (i.e. islands) – Messy when species hybridize
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Exciting news guys! BBC News released an article Wednesday revealing the unearthing of an important jawbone for human evolution in Ethiopia. This jawbone is claimed to be one of the very first humans. The most interesting piece of this discovery is that the jawbone has been dated at 2.8 million years, 400,000 years older than researchers have thought that humans
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Scientists, working for the Department of Energy’s ARM (Atmospheric Radiation Measurement) Program, have for the first time observed an increase in carbon dioxide’s greenhouse effect at the Earth’s surface (Nature Article, 2015). The research was conducted using data from the ARM Climate Research Facility. The data was used by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientists
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