A group of 16 students of the University of Oregeon is visiting the Santa Lucía Reserve. They are led by professor Tobias Policha, a well-known plant ecologist.
We created an exciting program for them which will cover a broad range of biology and ecology that the Cloud Forest offers. So far we have had a close look at birds, especially hummingbirds and today is plant day. Students will learn how to ID plants down to family level and find out about ecology (pollination, seed dispersal, ...) and uses of various plant species.
There will also be night hikes ... during the early phases of the night we will look for amphibians and reptiles, Tropical Herping's Frank Pichardo will help with that, and we will also start early in the morning to see the Cock's of the Rock (Rupicola peruvianus) early in the morning at their Lek.
Furthermore also some cooking activities are planned (quimbolitos!) for the next days and - if all works according to plan - we'll finish with a visit to the orchid hoping to explore a good bit of the diversity that that plant family offers in the reserve.
Hopefully everybody will be enjoying their stay here and come back in the future to do more research in our reserve. So far the students have shown interest in topics such as plant galls and fungus, two topics that are poorly understood here in the Cloud Forest.
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