Onward and upward

The past week has mainly been focused around another main component of this course – Faculty Field Projects. Throughout the course of the semester, we will complete 7 of these FFP’s. Scientists from all over the country come and spend a few days with us, while we work on a project with them. Each person is assigned to a group for a specific project for which they are responsible for organizing equipment and ultimately writing up the report. Everyone works on gathering data for all of the projects though. It’s an interesting way to be exposed to a wide range of topics and meet scientists other than our standard professors.

This week we did our first two FFP’s. The first one dealt with the dynamics between grass and trees and trying to use this relationship to create fire management plans. Wildfires burn differently based on the composition of the landscape. When there are a lot of trees, fires tend not to burn. This project involved measuring grasses and trees in different locations and looking for signs of fire. I wasn’t assigned to write up this report, so I don’t know the exact findings but the concept seemed interesting. The other FFP this week involved looking at how marula seeds are dispersed. Marula trees are very common here and produce a very sweet fruit. The fruit can be eaten raw, or it is often fermented to make marula beer. Marula seeds are a popular food for elephants, which is a main way that the seeds are dispersed. Squirrels also eat the seeds and sometimes hoard them in large bunches. The project we worked on dealt with determining how both elephants and squirrels play a role in dispersing the seeds. A large number of seeds were marked with magnets and fluorescent powder and set out to see how far squirrels can carry them to hoard them. We will have to wait a few months to go back and see the results of this part of the experiment. To determine the impact of elephants, we measured how far marula seedlings were found from the parent plant. We also collected elephant dung to see how many marula seeds the elephants had ingested. We only worked on these projects with the visiting scientists for about three days, but even in this short amount of time I was able to learn a lot.

                It’s hard to believe it, but we are already moving on from Skukuza after spending a little over two weeks here. We’ll be back here once again in the beginning of April to do more fieldwork. It will be nice to come back to some place that we have already experienced. Tomorrow morning we are driving north to Hamakuya where we will spend a few days in homestays, and a few days in the classroom. From there we will be traveling to Mapungubwe which is near the Northern border of South Africa. These two places don’t have internet access, so I will be internet-less for about two weeks. Hopefully I’ll have some good stories to share the next time I’m online though.

Lots and lots of termites

Sorry this blog is so long - the internet has been down for a few days so I've had a while to write it:

One of the major components of this study abroad program is the completion of two independent projects (IP’s). These projects allow us to experience the work that is needed to plan, carry out, and write up scientific experiments. For the past week, we have been working on our first IP. Because this is our first experience with this type of fieldwork, the subject area was somewhat assigned - all projects needed to have something to do with termites. This announcement was a little disappointing to a lot of people (myself included), who had envisioned doing a project on animals that are more exciting and glamorous than termites. After actually doing research and carrying out the project, I realized how interesting termites actually are. They play a huge role in determining the soil and nutrient dynamics of the savanna by cycling soil to build their mounds. Even though they are only millimeters in length, they are still able to create termite mounds that are taller than I am.

I ended up working with three other students on a project that expanded on a project that was completed by students last fall. In their study they found out that termite mound height decreases as you move down a catena (basically a slope down to a river that has changing vegetation patterns). We decided to take this project further by studying if this change in height was related to a change in termite species down the catena. We spent three days in the field gathering data, and two days analyzing and writing up a report. The fieldwork was definitely intense. Because it’s the middle of summer here, we needed to try to get all of our work out of the way in the morning before it got too hot towards the midday. As a result, we usually got up around 4:45 each morning and headed out to our study site by 5:30, finishing up around 12:30. The work itself was pretty tiring. We selected 40 termite mounds to sample, and for each mound we had to take measurements and obtain a specimen for identification. Some of these mounds were over 2 meters high and other were about 4 meters in diameter, so it usually took a while to dig far enough into the mound to actually reach the termites. I think that we were all envisioning putting a stick into a hole in the mound and coming out with termites. In reality though, it required a lot of hard work with a shovel and a pickax to actually get the samples we needed.

                Other groups of students worked on project about vegetation diversity on termite mounds, soil moisture in and around mounds, and rodent species that are found near termite mounds. While they were done every day when fieldwork was over, my group had to continue our work once we got back to the classroom. We had to look at samples of termites from each mound that we sampled in order to identify their species. It required a lot of time looking through a microscope and trying to pick out tiny differences between the termites. It reminded me a lot of looking at fruit flies in genetics lab.

                Although the project was a lot of work, it was worth it in the end when we actually got to analyzing our results. There are only 5 genera of termites that build mounds in Kruger National Park, and even though we sampled a very small area, we found all 5 genera. In total we found 11 out of the 22 possible genera of termites in the area, which is really impressive. There’s also the chance that we could have discovered a new species of termite. The key that we were using to identify the termites only went down to the genus level, so we weren’t able to figure out the specific species of our samples. For one of our termites, the book that we were using said that there are only 2 previously identified species of that genus, but they know that there are a lot more left to be discovered. Not many people actually study termites, so the work that our program is doing could be substantial. We still have a lot more revising to do, but eventually we will present our project to the staff here at the park.

So now that I’ve bored you with all of this science stuff – an exciting fieldwork story. Because we are part of this program, we have the rare opportunity to actually do work in Kruger National Park. When tourists come here, they aren’t even allowed to get out of their cars and explore on foot, so we are incredibly lucky to have this experience. Doing fieldwork here comes with its risks though. The terrain here is nothing like you would expect, if you watched the Lion King. Disney wants you to view the savanna as a flat plain with lot of short grass, sand and a few trees and rocks scattered here and there. Although other places might look like that, the terrain here is very different. There is waist high grass and large clumps of short bushes and vegetation, making it impossible to see past a few feet. Basically every plant has some sort of thorn or burr which immediately imbed themselves into your shoes and clothes. In addition, because we are working out in the open, there is always the danger of encountering wild animals. Because of this, each group was assigned to a game guard for protection purposes. My group was lucky and was assigned to one of our professors (who is also a licensed game guard), so he was able to help us out with the academic side of our project as well. Although we knew that there were animals out there, for the first two days we never really encountered anything except for a few impala (and of course, our termites). On the third day though, we got a first-hand experience on what working in the field truly means. We were sampling our third mound of the day when all of a sudden, we saw our professor/game guard (Alan) aiming his gun at something. We quickly realized that there was a hyena right in front of us. Alan tried to scare it off by shouting at it and waving his arms, but it kept inching closer with its head up and its ears moving. When it was probably about 5 meters from us, Alan fired a warning shot into the ground next to it, which thankfully sent it running. Not five minutes later though, we saw it walking past us again, but luckily it didn’t stop this time and we were done sampling our mound so we were able to move on. No one was hurt (including the hyena), and although it was startling, not many people can say that they’ve been that close to a wild hyena. Later that day we also came across a large group of elephants. Because they are so large and unpredictable, it’s not a good idea to be anywhere near them in the field. We ended up skipping 2 of our sampling mounds because it was better to get out of the way of the elephants. Even with the danger of being out in the field, I definitely prefer this to learning in the classroom.       

And finally - a link to my newest pictures (all from Skukuza):

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=632674&id=870290077&l=078bab841e

 

Link to pics

Here's the link to my pictures from Nylsvley, since I forgot the link yesterday. Pictures from Skukuza will be up as soon as I have enough internet time to upload them.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=631336&id=870290077&l=d5e7c2c2f1

Skukuza part 1

So I think that after this post I'll be almost caught up with this blog:

Last Monday we packed up the cars and vans and headed for our next location – Skukuza. We were told that the trip would take about 8 hours, but almost immediately we were delayed by a flat tire. It ended up being a very long car ride, but it was worth it because the scenery was so beautiful. There are a lot of hills and mountains here, but it’s very different from home because most of them are covered with only grass, or very little vegetation. A lot of the ride was up in the tops of the mountains, with lots of tight turns and dips in the road. At one point, we did drive through an area that looked like home, with lots of hills covered in thousands of pine trees. My professor who was driving told us that it is one of the largest man made forests in the world. The trees were imported from Australia to use in potential paper mills, but the paper business never really took off, most likely because it isn’t too easy to access the trees in the first place. As a result, there are now miles of pine trees in a place where you wouldn’t expect to see them.  

Skukuza is different from the first two places that we stayed because it is a major tourist attraction. It’s located in Kruger National Park, which is South Africa’s largest national park. It’s also the headquarters for the park and holds the largest tourist rest camp. Before we even entered the tourist camp where we will be staying, we drove through the staff village, where most of the staff with my program has their permanent houses, and the research village, where visiting researchers stay while they study here. I definitely didn’t expect such a large community within a national park, but the number of people who live here full-time is impressive. We are staying in a large dorm building within the tourist area. This area is fenced off to reduce the risk of animals entering, but there’s always the chance of animals jumping the fence. The facilities are very nice, and in addition to having a pool right outside of our rooms, there are also two restaurants, a store, a post office and a library to use while we are here. There are lots of tourists here, as opposed to our last two locations where it was basically just us. It’s nice to have some modern amenities (namely internet) back again though.

So far we’ve been on a lot of game drives because Skukuza has a lot of interesting animal and plant diversity. Everyone here refers to the “Big Five” which are the five animals that people aspire to see in Africa – elephant, lion, leopard, rhino and buffalo. So far I’ve only seen two, elephant and rhino, but with the amount of time that we spend outside in the field, there’s a good chance I’ll see the rest before we leave. The other morning we also had the opportunity to see a group of African wild dogs, which are pretty rare to see. We were on a hill overlooking them, and from that view it looked like they were stalking prey, although we didn’t have enough time to stay and find out. Another animal that I really like here is the impala. They remind me of the deer from back home, except they really aren’t fazed to be around people. Everywhere we drive, we pass by groups of them grazing on the side of the road. Only the tiny young impala are ever startled by the cars.  

Nylsvley in Review

Although we were told that it would only take about 2 hours to get to Nylsvley from Ezemvelo, it ended up taking about 5 hours by van, with a stop to pick up supplies. The lodging was much nicer. We stayed in one large dorm building, with 2 to 4 people per room. Although my room was still small, it was still nice to have enough room to actually open my bag. There also weren’t any monkeys there, so we were able to keep our windows open (at Enzemvelo there was an incident when someone left their window open and a vervet monkey got in and managed to make a mess and try to eat someone’s toothpaste). We also had a very spacious dining room and a large classroom with lots of windows. Even with all the windows though, the room still got very hot and we weren’t able to use fans because we couldn’t hear the professors. Something that’s really surprised me is how soft-spoken most of the South Africans (especially the men) are. Most of my professors have very quiet voices which has been difficult at times. We were in Nylsvley for about a week and since I didn’t have internet – here are the highlights:

1)      Most of the time was spent in the classroom. These first few weeks are very lecture-intensive in order to prepare us for doing fieldwork projects later in the semester. Because everyone on the program has a different academic background, some of these lectures are meant to get everyone on the same page. A lot of the time has been focused on statistics, and although it isn’t too interesting, it has definitely been helpful because my background with stats isn’t too strong.  We have also started to consider the stages of planning a scientific experiment in preparation for our independent projects. This involved being out in the field and planning a mock experiment to investigate some interesting aspect of the savanna. Although we don’t actually have to perform the experiments, it was still difficult to work with a group and plan something out.

2)      The grass here is much higher so it’s slightly harder to spot animals. Even so, I’ve seen lots of giraffes, which is exciting. We also were able to see a family of genets, which look like small cats, but are actually more related to weasels or mongooses. The birds here are also impressive. I don’t know a lot about the different species, but they are definitely different from the birds at home.

3)      With all of the lectures, there still hasn’t been a whole lot of free time. It’s been an adjustment going from a very defined class schedule, to a schedule that changes every day, and classes on weekends. Even so, the staff knows that the amount of work is intense and often try to set up fun or relaxing activities. A big thing in South Africa is “Sundowners” which is where you go and relax while you watch the sun set. The stars are also pretty amazing here and one night we got the chance to stargaze from a watch tower. There’s basically no light pollution here, so the sky is really clear. It’s weird to see all of the constellations flipped upside down from what I am used to. It was also pretty interesting to see the Southern Cross in the sky, which is never visible from the Northern hemisphere.

4)      On our last day before leaving for Skukuza, we had most of the day off, but one of the staff members set up an OTS-style Amazing Race, which was basically a huge scavenger hunt across the savanna. The whole thing was based on GPS locations and required lots of walking though tall grasses and swamps. Because there are no predators around, we were safe to walk wherever we wanted. Our GPS wasn’t really functioning at first so my group ended up wandering around for a while. It was a fun experience, but it was a lot more exhausting than I had expected.  

Ezemvelo - The Beginning

Now that we are finally in a place with internet (Skukuza), I can write about my first two weeks in South Africa. After one short flight, two really long flights and my first experience with extreme jetlag, I arrived in Johannesburg where I met up with the rest of my group. There are 25 of us all together. Most people are from small colleges in the US, similar to Colby, but we also have three students in the program that go to University here in South Africa. From the airport it was about a two hour drive to the first place that we stayed at – Ezemvelo. It was definitely a different experience to be driving on the left side of the road, and in addition, many of the roads were not paved so it was a bumpy ride. Ezemvelo is a nature reserve that is pretty isolated. Although it also functions as a campground, we rarely saw any other people. We stayed in a large building with two large bedrooms and two bathrooms. There was also a separate building that functioned as a classroom and dining room, a swimming pool and a lake to swim in. So here are the highlights from the 4 days we spent there:

Classes: It’s weird to think that this is actually a study abroad program that I am getting credit for – it feels too much like a vacation. The first few days were mainly filled with introductory lectures. We have four main professors, although other lecturers will be visiting throughout the semester. Although there are four classes, there is so much overlap between them that all of the professors kind of teach everything. Most of them have been with this program since it started about 7 years ago, and one of the lecturers participated in the program a few years ago, so they are all very knowledgeable. It’s also nice to have a group of professors that knows the students really well and can coordinate when all of the major assignments are due, so we aren’t swamped by work.  It’s definitely a different experience from Colby. There were frequently Vervet monkeys that ran by the classroom window, and we are all encouraged to walk barefoot everywhere, including to class (our professors never wear shoes themselves). It’s also been different to be in class for such long periods of time. The schedule changes every day, but we usually start classes by 8 and are busy until about 3 or 4, occasionally with early morning game drives or night lectures. Although we get breaks throughout the day, there is not a lot of free time for ourselves, so it’s hard to imagine how we are going to actually do homework and reading once they assign it. A large part of the first few days focused on the history of South Africa which was really interesting. One of the professors, David was involved in many governmental organizations and resistance groups during the time of the apartheid so we got a lot of first-hand accounts. We also started one of our semester-long projects which is an insect collection (It’s biologically-incorrect to refer to them simply as “bugs” but it’s a hard habit to break).

Animals: The wildlife here is amazing. There aren’t any large predators here so many animals have free reign of the area. Driving in on the first day, we got to see wildebeests and ostriches. We also had the chance to go on a morning game drive where I was able to see lots of zebras, warthogs, a black-backed jackal, springbuck, waterbuck, impala, and lots of birds. There was also a snake hanging around our rooms one night. Because there are no real predators, we were free to walk around whenever we wanted. It was quite the experience to be able to go running and see wildebeests and zebras running in the next field over.    

Weather: It’s definitely warmer than home, but it’s not as hot as I expected. It’s hard to get used to everything being in Celsius, but I think it’s been in the high seventies maybe? It’s definitely nice to be out of the snow, but it’s just going to get hotter as the semester goes on.

Pictures are taking forever to upload because the internet is so slow, but I posted them on facebook, so this link might work:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=628003&id=870290077&l=836459f48b

 

Why South Africa?

I’ve received a wide variety of responses when I have told people that I am going to spending my spring semester in South Africa. Some people are very excited for me and can appreciate everything that the country has to offer. On the other hand, some people simple cannot believe that out of all the countries in the world, I would willingly choose to spend over three months in South Africa. So, to all of you skeptics out there (I doubt too many people are reading this though), here is why I am studying abroad in South Africa:

1)      I wanted a field study program, as opposed to a program where you simply take classes at a university somewhere. I figure that I’ve spent the last two and a half years sitting in classrooms and listening to lectures, so doing fieldwork will be a change for me. As a biology major, I also feel that I can learn so much more by actually doing fieldwork instead of just learning concepts in class. Plus, who wouldn’t want to have class outside and be able to see wildlife on a daily basis?

2)      I wanted to be in a country that speaks English. Although I appreciate foreign languages, I do not particularly enjoy learning how to speak and understand them. It would have been an extra challenge to sit in a lecture where the professor was speaking in a different language. Although South Africa has 11 official languages, most people there speak English (with a great accent too).

3)      I wanted to go somewhere I might never have the chance to visit again. There is a good chance that this will be the only time in my life that I will be able to do research in national parks in South Africa and have the experience of learning everything first hand. Even if I visit South Africa at other times in my life, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity.

So for all of these reasons, I am currently spending my spring semester studying abroad in South Africa with the Duke University/Organization for Tropical Studies program. Along with a group of 24 other students, I will be travelling all over South Africa while learning about the ecology, conservation and history of the country. Throughout the semester I'll bin Ezemvelo, Nylsvley, Skukuza, HaMakuya, Mapungubwe, DeHoop, Pretoria and Cape Town. Although internet will not be available at all of the locations, I’ll do my best to update this blog/post some pictures.