#fieldecology

I guess I never mentioned on here that we left in July, but here we are back at Trail Valley again! Although we had a few weeks back in Ontario, and then a bit over a week in Oregon for the Ecological Society of America (ESA) conference, it feels a bit like we never left Trail Valley Creek. Things in camp hardly changed while we were gone – aside from one stop-in while we were gone during July, nobody has been living here since Cory and I left. We had (and still have) a bit to do to get things up and running again. It took me most of the day to get the main heater in the weather haven running (today was cool enough that it was needed). Fuel wasn’t getting to it the way it should, but with a bit of disassembly and some tinkering, I got it heating again! We also can only get the smaller and more efficient generator (which powers the incinerating toilet) to start occasionally. This is why we have back-ups of everything in camp though!  There was a bit of wind damage while we were gone too – the iconic caribou skull on the TVC population sign blew off, and the NWT flag got shredded. Both repairable and/or replaceable, but just not high on our priority list.

The tundra was super green when we got here, with all the flowers having passed their prime (and no lack of rain, as indicated by the HUGE puddles and high water levels everywhere). As beautiful as the flowers were, it is pretty darn awesome to have the abundant blueberries that ripen up at this time of year! Even since arriving, we’ve seen some of the willow shrubs start to change colour – autumn comes fast on the tundra! The sun is setting a bit at night, which is a welcome change from before we left. It’s still not getting truly dark out, but that’ll happen soon enough, and with that means the return of northern lights!

We had an awesome encounter with our little friend from the spring, Monty the fox on our first night back in camp. Just as we were going to bed he was hanging around near our tent, and I’m pretty sure the little guy started playing a game with us. Any time I would talk to him, he would start running full-tilt and bouncing around all over the place (like a really excited puppy), sometimes coming really close before turning away fast. He kept on doing this for quite awhile, and I got a video of it that I’ll try to post when not on camp-quality internet. It was pretty hilarious to watch.

On the science front, things haven’t been super exciting. The snow fence seedlings that we were super excited about look to perhaps be the wrong species, now that they have matured a bit and had some true leaves emerge – quite a bummer. It’s insane how many of them still have only cotyledons though – we did not expect them to look as much as new germinants as they do! We’re also trying to re-work a shrub seedling/sapling dendrochronology (tree-ring) project of Cory’s, as we realized that there were some flaws in the original sampling plans. Not totally a surprise that this happened – I don’t think I’ve ever had a project actually go through with the original sampling plans once getting out to the field! It’s just the way things seem to go with field ecology. Until we figure that out, we’ve been counting seedlings at the locations where Cory had deployed seed traps that we collected in the spring. That way, he can pair seed counts with seedling counts. Yesterday while doing this, we made a detour to finally walk across the Trail Valley Creek bridge that’s a part of the Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk “highway” that’ll be opening in the fall. It’s a pretty impressive bridge, for the middle of nowhere! We also came across evidence that the highway has served as a caribou freeway – many many tracks along the entire kilometer of road that we walked!

Today we rebuilt the snow fence so it’s ready for another winter (we took it down so it wouldn’t cause shading effects over the summer months). It was cool enough to keep the bugs relatively at bay which was good, because it was very still and overcast – two thirds of the bug horror trifecta! I also found two caribou antlers while walking to and from the snow fence site. One of them was the most decomposed I’ve ever seen an antler up here get – when I pulled it out of the moss, it fractured across the broadest part! That one didn’t make the trip back to camp, but I’ve at least got one more “tundra trophy” in my collection.

NAPIRE is a research experience and cultural exchange program designed for Native American and Pacific Islander undergraduate students. This experience is supported by The Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation Program (LSAMP, National Science Foundation). The eight-week NAPIRE Program takes place at the Las Cruces Biological Station in southern Costa Rica. Undergraduate students conduct original ecological field research, including the development of an appropriate research question, carrying out fieldwork, and analyzing and writing up results using accepted scientific procedures.  Field courses always feel like family and NAPIRE is an especially tight knit and joyful group.  As I have written about in a previous blog, I find field courses to be particularly valuable in teaching core life skills such as cooperation, critical thinking, perseverance and problem solving. 

My own experiences with NAPIRE have been absolutely amazing.  I have had the honor of working with five wonderful and inspiring students over the couple years I have worked with NAPIRE.   I consider these students to be friends and colleagues and hope that we can support and teach one another going forward.

This summer, as a research mentor for NAPIRE, I surveyed the students and mentors about their experience with NAPIRE.  Students, mentors and staff alike found the program valuable.  Every single respondent said that they would enthusiastically recommend NAPIRE to others (10 on a scale of 10 from all respondents).  Although there are a variety of career goals represented among the group, ranging from pursuing careers in medicine to working with forest service and conservation groups to pursuing professorships and other higher education positions, most found the experience valuable in terms of pursuing their career goals.   I personally plan to pursue a career in higher education and am invested in continuing to do research while teaching and mentoring students in independent research projects.  As a second time participant in NAPIRE, I have grown a lot with NAPIRE as a principal investigator.  The second time I was a NAPIRE mentor I felt competent in giving the right blend of autonomy and supervision to maximize both project outcomes and student learning and growth.  I am excited to continue working with NAPIRE to learn from and mentor many more amazing students.   One valuable contribution of programs like NAPIRE that is not always considered is that they are important training grounds for faculty and future faculty in how to support diversity and student learning.

“I would like to pursue higher education,” one student wrote.  “[NAPIRE was valuable in pursuing this career goal] because I have had firsthand experience in conducting my own research project and ending the experience with a written Scientific Research paper.”  Another student wrote, “[My career goals is to] go home back to my reservation and help the people by teaching, informing and including them in the art of conservation.”   Mentors likewise found the NAPIRE experience valuable.  One mentor, whose career goal is to “continue in education and research in ecological and conservation sciences” wrote that NAPIRE was valuable to their career goals “because it has given me direct experience in mentoring, teaching, and interacting with individuals from extremely diverse backgrounds.”  Another mentor,  whose “career goal is to have a research/teaching position at a university,” wrote that they thought NAPIRE was helpful in that for several reasons: “First of all, the experience of intensive hands-on mentoring of two students over a summer REU project gives me good skills for supervising Masters (and hopefully eventually PhD) students. The experience in the tropics is also helpful and may help me to branch my research into the Neotropics. Finally, the experience working with Indigenous students, learning about their own cultural ways of knowing and their experience of nature is extremely rewarding and makes me a better educator.”

In addition to career related growths, the experience of traveling abroad and having new experiences can be challenging for many reasons.  I asked NAPIRE participants what their biggest concern was going into the program and whether this had still been a concern by the end.  One student wrote that, “Being away from my family […t]urned out to be as challenging as I expected, but with internet and new forms of communication it was bearable.”  Another student wrote that. “I was really concerned about how well my mentor and I would get along but everything turned out to be fine.”  In addition to being far from family and friends, Costa Rica is a foreign culture for most NAPIRE participants.  One NAPIRE participant commented that one concern had been “Getting accustomed to the culture, but it was perfectly fine, the only problem I have now are the bug bites. My legs are so fugly now.” Ashley Carlisle wrote that she was concerned about a “Lack of confidence in my ability to perform an independent research project. It was a concern until I met the wonderful/enthusiastic interns and mentors which the concern immediately flew out the window and my confidence grew.”  Many students had concerns about their ability as researchers, but the support of fellow interns and mentors did alleviate those concerns.   One student wrote, “I learned in NAPIRE that everyone has a niche to fill and that we all have skills in something. I had great mentors who showed me that I can learn anything if I try. “  And another wrote,  “I enjoy learning from the others and they learn from me as well. The whole situation is a learning process that everyone undergoes.”  Mentors also had concerns about their expertise: “Biggest concern was not knowing the Costa Rican ecosystem well enough, so I feared I wouldn't be able to guide the students well enough on their projects. Didn't turn out to be a problem at all - we learned together, which was great.”

Interestingly, most peoples’ concerns centered on challenges about research and interpersonal issues but their most memorable moments were also about those same topics.   When I asked about the most memorable experiences in NAPIRE, I heard about the wonderful memories that people had made over the weeks.  “My most memorable experience in NAPIRE is the research experience,” wrote one student.  “Being able to work with mentors who provide insight in their field helps me so much in preparing for and knowing what to expect, the level of effort, and the mindsets that are required in scientific studies.”  “The short or long interactions I have had with numerous people such as the tribal members, interns, mentors, and OTS staff,” wrote another student.  Many students wrote about how impressed they were with seeing snakes and other wildlife.  For example, one student wrote: “My most memorable experience was when we took the night hike at La Selva and we were about 4/5 of the way done with the night hike when we spot a fer-de-lance on the side of the trail.  As we look at it, it starts to curl up and the next thing we know, the snake jumps up almost 2 feet onto the elevated sidewalk and started to strike out at us and chased us down the sidewalk.”