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The travel ad might have looked something like this:
Wanted: Students interested in summer research opportunities in science. Must thrive in jungle-like setting, adjust easily to sudden downpours, make easy friends with things that crawl, slither, and expose fangs, and appear unruffled by the sight of machetes and sprawling rain forests, as seen from the back of a speeding van whose driver has little patience with brakes.
With some surprise, these were among the encounters that made a summer research trip in Costa Rica one of the most memorable for a handful of Claremont Colleges Joint Science students, including CMC's Alicia Hill '08. The group, comprised of Hill, Scripps College students Alexandra Binder, Keala Cummings, and Emily Schultz (all '09), and Sam Scott '09, of Pitzer College, spent June and July in the Central American country to conduct various kinds of research under the supervision of Joint Science Associate Professor of Biology Donald McFarlane, assistant professor of biology Diane Thomson, and assistant professor of chemistry Katie Purvis-Roberts.
Hill, there to study amphibians (her experience is summarized in diary-form, below), was able to join the group through a grant provided by the Rose Hills Foundation to support summer student research in the sciences. While Hill was doing things like tracking and recording the mating calls of frogs for her senior thesis, fellow students were paying close attention to butterfly diversity, tree growth, nutrient and bacteria levels in the Costa Rican waters, and capturing, observing, and releasing bats—the latter being McFarlane's personal research interest.
"This research opportunity in Costa Rica was unbelievable," Hill says. "I never imagined that I would be able to travel to such an exotic place, and be able to study tropical frogs in their natural habitat."
More from Hill follows:
We'd only been in Costa Rica five days, but already I was questioning my decision to go. There I was, struggling to climb a mountain, interrupted by my own voice: What the heck are you doing here, Alicia?
The heavy realization of living in southwestern Costa Rica—for the next two months—had fallen on me. I was finally adjusting to the ever-present humidity and the necessary act of packing every leftover food morsel into plastic bags (protection from bugs and mold). With every step around the clock, I—we—were wary of deadly snakes. And in the evenings before bed, tucked ourselves behind mosquito nets.
This was a huge culture shock—traveling from Southern California to a rain forest—a blur between the great outdoors and the familiar comforts of domestic living. I had arrived in a very foreign environment and knew I had to acclimate. I was here to monitor frog mating calls for my senior thesis.
My work took place at the Firestone Reserve for Restoration Ecology, once a cattle ranch, and donated in 2005 to Pitzer College. I was studying amphibians because of their important role as indicator species: those that reflect the health of an ecosystem, due to their aquatic and terrestrial lifestyles. With greater amphibian species diversity and abundance on the property, one can infer that the ecosystem is getting closer to reaching its previous undisturbed state.
Recording the mating calls was done at night, at several ponds on our research property. Because every frog and toad has a distinct call, distinguishing which species was making the sound proved less problematic than I'd anticipated.
The research would end up yielding hours of frog-call data, as well as expanding the "found" amphibian species list by three. But by the end of two months, my frog research proved to be a mere percentage of my total experience in Costa Rica; countless other memories were made on the trip.
One of them was about our dormitory. With its long, ruffled tin roof, there was no sleeping beyond 8:30 in the morning, unless you liked the sensation of baking under the morning's rising sun. The dormitory apparently also came with a live-in pet: a bat, (Batty to us)—a great ally in reducing our mosquito and wandering wolf spider populations. As they noticeably disappeared, so Batty's girth inflated. In daytime we found Batty sleeping under our kitchen table or one of the beds.
(Have I mentioned that such stories were shared with my parents AFTER I got back?)
One particular afternoon offered a different kind of danger. The group of us were headed into the dense hills—a daily hike from our dorm—to conduct our research. The lone guy in our group, Sam, was at the front of the line, hacking at vegetation with a machete to clear our way. While scaling a waterfall, later, his machete slipped and nicked his scalp—a cut patched up with duct tape.
Then there was the evening that I stepped over a terciopelo snake while wearing flip-flops. Known as the Fer-de-lance in North America, this venomous pit viper is considered one of the most dangerous snakes in Costa Rica. Our chance meeting happened after an exhausting day of work on the property and a mishap earlier in the day when I slipped and fell, bruising my leg, at Terciopelo Creek. The adrenaline rush, upon spotting the snake, was not caused by fear, but by the pure excitement of surviving my accidental step over his coiled body.
It would not be the last encounter with this species, or other rain forest critters. On a different day, six feet in front of me—along a narrow trail on my way to set up the frog-call recording device—I met another, this one 4-foot-long. I knew I had to proceed. I wasn't about to be "beaten" by a snake. I would prove to myself that I could be brave. And I was.
Before visiting Costa Rica, I was not a fan of spiders. I was the girl who would yelp if I saw one crawling. One night while tucking in my mosquito net, I saw a considerably large spider resting on my bedpost. Instead of panicking, I found someone to take care of it for me. Good thing, too. It was carrying an egg sac. In this instance I learned that even though spiders aren't for cuddling, I don't have to yelp at them, either. I'm choosing to live in harmony with them.
One of the most valuable lessons to come out of this summer research experience was learning first-hand how every organism has a role in the ecosystem. No matter how small the organism, or seemingly disgusting, it is not without purpose. When you are in an area with such a massive amount of biodiversity, you have no choice but to live with the animals. You learn to fall asleep to the stentorian rainforest, check your boots for nesting scorpions, shower with arachnids, or share your kitchen counter with a pervasive supply of foraging ants.
When I first arrived in Costa Rica, it was Me vs. Omnipresent Nature, but it later became Me in the Jungle. You learn to accept your surroundings as they are, not what you wish them to be. The key was letting go of unrealistic expectations, like sleeping without pesky mosquitoes. I accepted it all, and now feel I can better embrace and adapt to new circumstances.
My trip to Costa Rica has opened up a new facet of biology for me: field research. I really enjoyed living in the jungle and learning to adapt to it. The frog research was incredible, and witnessing thousands of frog eggs hanging on leaves is an image I will never forget.
I hope to further my field experience at every opportunity. And maybe one day, I will be able to research rare frogs in their natural habitat in a place untouched by human hands.
Back to Inside CMC
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The group, from left: Keala Cummings (SCR '09), Alexandra Binder (SCR '09), Alicia Hill '08, Emily Schultz (SCR '09), and Sam Scott (PIT '09)
Looking toward the ocean from our Costa Rican property
A new species on the property found: the Milk Frog
Another new species on the property was found: the Gliding Tree Frog
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