The Joys of Collaboration

Jubilation! The meeting with Rodrigo Vasquez on June 30th went amazingly. Rodrigo and his former graduate student, Claudia Maturana, agreed to meet with us that afternoon. I told Loren before we arrived that it was possible that he may have to rein me in if I got too excited about the project and all my ideas. Fortunately, I was able to stay focused and we had an excellent meeting. Claudia had spent time working with Dan Blumstein analyzing acoustic data on the degus and some preliminary work on the coruros. She discovered a trend with degus in particular suggesting the animals were alarming not to a predator specific call, but to the predator's approach and degree of perceived risk.

If all goes according to plan, I will be staying in Chile until mid-December. I will spend about 6 weeks in the mountains at a reserve near La Parva trapping monster coruros (over 120 g. as opposed to 75 g. in Rinconada) and collecting environmental data. This will allow me to make a two-population comparison, strengthening my research. I will be able to make not only within population comparisons, but between population comparisons as well!

El Murado outside Cajón del Maipo

I have been so caught up with the research and preparation for the field I find myself exhausted every evening. It seems nearly impossible but almost three weeks ago I was riding up a funicular to the top of San Cristobal to visit the enormous Virgin Mary statue who sat upon said hill. After that, I somehow found myself in the Andes on the Fourth of July, staring up at an Andean condor in disbelief. And now today, 6 coruro captures later, I was staring at two lovely foxes crossing the valley about 200 m. before us with me hoping that they stay away from the traps and not pee on them again.

My project ideas have been mashed, molded and mashed a little more for good measure. Right now, we are working hard every day to collect all that we can about the coruros and the environment around them. We are taking time to get to know our little friends as well. Below is a picture of Machito. He was such a ham as he posed for the camera. Today we caught our first female. What a fiery and clever little thing she was! And how uncooperative! My gosh!

Look at this handsome devil!

That's all for now. More news soon to come. We are planning a trip to somewhere outside Chile, sometime in August. I must leave the country before my 90 days are up on my visitor's visa. It will be a surprise for both of us once I decide where to go. Also, a trip to Valdivia, in the south of Chile, is in the works. I am going to beg and plead my adviser to take me to Chiloé while I am there. There is such a uniqueness and abundance of life there that even Darwin himself would be in awe of.

Into the Wilds: the Rinconada de Maipú Field Site

The first time I have seen the field since last year was on Tuesday morning. The shadows from the early morning sun were cast over the hills. The prospect of hunting for the ‘vicious, stealthy’ coruro was thrilling. As ‘team degu’ began to piece together their telemetry equipment for a long day of tracking radio-collared degus, I stood silent reacquainted myself with the landscape. The steep hillside gave the coruros away. I could identify a network of colonies sweeping the across the farthest hills. I imagined how little heads would be popping in and out of the burrows, much like a whack-a-mole game at some arcade. Now, if only knocking them out with a rubber hammer would work as well as it does for the game.

The view from a coruro colony I found up the hillside. Not bad, huh?

My amazing coruro-tracking undergraduate Michael and I set off to flag active borrow openings. As we ranged across the hill where I had successfully trapped several individuals last year, I observed the coruros’ favored food, the bulb of Leucocoryne ixioides, a flowering plant locally called huilli, beginning to sprout from the earth. I look forward to seeing it flower in the austral spring. While flagging the active burrows among the colonies, I listened for the alarm calls of the fearsome coruro beneath the ground. A low-frequency repetitive bark sounding the retreat carried through the tunnels as my footsteps gave my presence away. I then sat quietly by one of the systems and within several minutes I observed 3 little heads pop out of the ground.

I also discovered a burrowing owl nest. The owls were beautiful. As I approached one called out at me and flew away. I found it humorous that not more than two meters from the juvenile owl who remained was a degu casually grazing. I also observed as I approached closer to degus on one side of the hill that they were diving into coruro tunnels to escape my presence. I thought of how this might complicate trapping. Later in the day, I ranged up and down the hillsides searching for new colonies. The hills were much steeper than I expected. I was exhausted by day’s end, but it was a great day to start the field season.

the common degu (Octodon degus)

The second day in the field became wet and rainy shortly after we arrived. It was a steady light rain, so we worked on. I pressed further into the valley. I was about to turn back when I came upon a system that spanned many meters down into the valley. I was so excited I set off back to the truck to retrieve more flags. As I hiked back to the truck I heard the radio playing loudly. The degu team had finished for the day and was listening to the fútbol game on the radio. We headed in early, unloaded the equipment and I walked home from the university. I turned in early, falling asleep to the guitarist playing and singing on the corner pub.

The irony of rainy days in Chile is that if the forecast calls for rain and we choose not to go into the field, it won’t rain. It was a beautiful, sunny Thursday. We decided enjoy the weather and to go out to lunch. We found a little restaurant to sit outside of. The waitresses were friendly and very charming. They had some wonderful ‘postres’ and Michael decided to order two slices of cake. The waitress thought he was joking. Michael nodded, “Si”. Thus he was dubbed “Flacito”, skinny little guy. The day was not wasted however, as it never is when you are learning new things about a language and culture.

Week One

Buenos dias a todos! Today we are sitting in a cyber café across from Católica University. The last few days have been a blur. We have spent much of our time touring the city. We have also been conscious not to miss the World Cup games, or Mundial, as they call it here. They have set up a large tent with a big screen TV in one of the courtyards of the University for students to watch the games between classes. You can imagine the crowd when Chile played. It showed here at 07:30 in the morning. It was an amazing game.

The reaction of the city was stunning when they won! Complete with confetti thrown from the buildings, chanting and cheering in the streets for “La Roja!” Hundreds of people were parading around on the streets waving flags, wearing patriotic hats, blowing vuvuzelas, horns and other noise makers. There were so many people the police closed streets and brought out what I like to call the ‘riot-mobiles’. When we left the university, they were arresting people on the streets. Though we avoided most of the activity in Plaza Italia, I saw how wild it was on TV. I tried to imagine people in the US getting so worked up about a football game.

The Alameda, a major roadway, was closed to accommodate Santiago's celebration.

We have been eating out a lot with our little adventures. Thursday night, for example, we traveled on the metro (subway) uptown to Providencia (we live in Centro, or the central part of the city) to find a pizza joint befitting of the description ‘a hole in the wall’. The Chileans description of pizza would not be the same as some from the United States. All pizzas are complete with thin crust, tomatoes and mozzarella cheese, but any and all toppings are fair game. All toppings from shrimp to green olives to corn kernels were found on the menu. I have also observed that Chileans love hot dogs, ‘palta’ or guacamole, tomatoes, coffee, wine and meat, meat, meat and more meat. Much of the food is quite different from anything you consider Mexican food. The closest thing you will find to tortillas is what they call ‘pancaques’, which are usually stuffed with something (meat) and covered with sauce. Vegetables with dinner, like a salad, seem to be more of an afterthought with people here. I will tell you a little secret. I love Peruvian food. We went to a little restaurant next to Plaza de Armas, had a round of Pisco sours, a national drink, though of which country's is still unknown (this has been a long-standing debate between Peruvians and Chileans) and were then served both an aesthetically pleasing and delicious meal.

Our down time, when we have not been exploring the city or watching the world cup, has been spent meeting with the professors and students we will be working with this field season. We have been trying to create a workable schedule. This task is proving quite difficult as there are many variables to consider. Meanwhile, we have also been reading up on literature. Michael has been very helpful in assisting me with finding papers for a potential empirical study. Sunday, we plan to go to the study site so that the new members of our team can get a feel for it. I remember last year when I saw the field site. It was definitely an 'ah-ha!' moment for me. Should be fun!

Links

For more information on the February 27 earthquake:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Chile_earthquake

Also, check out these sites:

Newsletter- ULM biology students receive grant funding to study in Chile and Taiwan:

http://www.ulm.edu/universityrelations/news/may10/biologystudents.html

Dr. Loren Hayes' webpage (caution- not updated):

http://www.ulm.edu/~lhayes/

Returning to Chile

What an adventure in itself traveling to Chile is! I left yesterday afternoon and arrived at my new apartment only hours ago. When we touched down, everything ran so surprisingly smoothly it felt as though I was still dreaming on the plane. The only unfortunate happenstance was that Rachel's bags did not make it on the plane with us. Also, I got in trouble for bringing raisins to Chile. "Raisins are forbidden" the inspector at baggage claim told me. I had to keep from laughing as I threw them away. But as I understand it now, all fruit is off the list.

I am so excited to be working with this year's research team. We have Tina Wey who is finishing up her doctorate from UCLA this fall. She and Rachel Chock, a post-masters graduate, are working on the degu project, with the assistance of Morgan Elfelt, a recent graduate of Minnesota State University-Moorhead. She will start her Masters in the fall. Then on 'Team Coruro' we have myself and Michael Lough Stevens, an undergraduate student attending UC-Berkeley and working in the institution's museum. He will be collecting fecal samples, identifying and measuring parasite loads.

Today, while walking the streets of Santiago, I reflected on how it almost felt like coming home. The loud noises and familiar sights, the chatter in Spanish all around me. The looming Andes are fixed in the cityscape. I was surprised to see how little damage the city had endured during the February 27 earthquake. Yes, you could see some damage still, but it was seen in the much older buildings like on the old cathedrals, and cracked plaster on gas station walls. Our landlord said the building we are living in now merely swayed but stood strong. He laughed when I asked if they expected anymore aftershocks. Only every ten years do they get such powerful earthquakes, he said.

Field work will start later in the following week. I plan to post a new entry every Saturday, so until then safe travels and continue to dream.