Week 2025/15 Wildlife Monitoring Recap.

This week we covered a wide range of topics in our monitoring program. Maicoll Quelal, Daniel Rodriguez and our volunteer Isabela Perez worked intensly on the aquatic macroinvertebrates. This was the last round for the time being where we look into the diversity of macroinverterbates in rivers within and outside of the reserve. The data will be used to create a baseline of what's out there during different seasons.

Comparing the data of clean rivers and streams near Nanegal also helps us to learn about the sensitivity of the various species with regards to contamination.

The methodology we are using was taught us during a training by EcoForensec and consists of two steps. First we "fish" for macroinvertebrates in the rivers. We take several samples within a 100-meters-long section of the river and we transport the samples back to the lab.

And here comes the tricky part: in the lab all individuals have to be classified and identified to - at least - family level. It takes a good eye for details to do that, because often the differences between families and genera are very small. Fortunately we meanwhile have some experience so of course we hope to have a good hit-rate. This work can take several hours depending on the number of individuals found.

We haven't got the final results of this round yet, but it looks like there is a little less diversity present in all the streams, which might have to do with the rainy season. If it rains the night before the sampling, some macroinvertebrates might get washed away. However, for any final conclusions it is too soon. As most of our monitoring projects this one will also be on hold until we obtain further funding. Thanks to EcoForensic for helping us with the funding for 2024/25.

On Monday afternoon we also did our monthly flower census in the orchid garden. As Noé and some volunteers brought it some new orchids into our freshly-renovated orchid garden, the number of flowers has not plummeted as is usual between the March and April. We found quite a species still in flower. A total of 17 species were observed.

Dracula vespertilio in the Santa Lucía Orchid Garden

In the upper part of the reserve we also spent a little time on plant and fungus phenology studies. The number of fruiting bodies of fungus has been decreasing since January, but since the project is still pilot stage and also the project doesn't cover the whole reserve we don't know yet whether that observation be generalized. Those are more topics that will be put on hold for the moment as Santa Lucía is passing through a difficult stage because of the decline of tourism in Ecuador.

And finally we also reviewed a few seed traps and collected samples from them. It turned out though, that one was seriously damaged by a branch that had fallen right on top of it. Since the trap was folded up and partly covered with soil it was impossible to collect seed, so we fixed the damage, cleaned the trap and set it up again.

Now on a serious note: as mentioned above the Santa Lucía community had to make some serious cuts in spendings within its business. Contracts were dissolved and some staff is working on reduced hours. This way we try to guarantee operativeness for the tourism-part of our business. The reason for the cuts is a dramatically reduced income due to a dramatic decline of the numbers of tourists / student groups that is visiting us.

Unfortunately this also means that there are no funds for the extras, e.g. the monitoring activities, so they will be put on hold for the moment. This is particularly sad for the long-term monitoring, for instance the bird monitoring which we have been doing continuously since 2007.

If someone would like to make a financial contribution in order to improve the situation in the research and education field - could be a general help or dedicated to one of aforementioned topics (or a new one), every single small contribution is welcome and will help.

Here's the like: https://www.santaluciaecuador.com/science-research