Tears for Galapagos

I did not have much chance to post anything while I was away this trip, probably because I was having too much fun seeing sights I didn't see the last time. However, as I am on the long trip back home, I thought I'd post tears for departing Galapagos. This was a site on Isabela island. Earlier in the 20th century, the ecuadorians used to have a penal colony on Isabela island where they had prisoners build and rebuild a pointless wall of stones. I can't imagine the frustration and agony they went through carrying and laying stone after stone in the heat of the tropical sun.

Holy Lekking Lizards!

I haven't had much time to get near an internet connection this past week. However, about 900 images on my new camera, and about 300 thermal images has given me a lot to sift through on this trip. I thought this was funny. The sign below points to the Playa del Amor (Lover's Beach).

Evidently, marina iguanas can read signs since this is where all the lekking males hang out:

I can't really post any videos (since it's not breeding season here anyway, but I also can't upload large files), so I will cross post to someone who has written blogs on this: http://zoologyweblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/marine-iguana-lek.html I can see why my host here is fascinated with marine iguanas. Easy to approach and fascinating to watch for hours at a time. Unfortunately, my tourism trips got in the way of iguana watching.

Mission Impossible

So, I am currently being hosted by the wonderful folks at the Isabela Oceanographic Institute (picture below).


The purpose of the trip here is primarily for fun, but my idea of fun involves observing nature. So, I've brought the toys to help me do so (i.e. thermal camera). The IOI serves as the base of operation for a semester long field course where students from the University of Miami get credit for learning herpetology, ecology, conservation, community involvement and basic research techniques. The coordinator of the course was kind enough to allow me to 'tag along' provided I share some thermal images for the sake of education. Sounds like a good deal to me. The location is a former catholic mission, so the accommodation for the profs is quite nice. The director of the IOI has completely refurbished the place and we have a kitchen, classroom, dive room (where all the diving gear is stored) as well as easy access to the beach and the marine iguanas. The impossible part of this mission? I just left my 3rd year students back in Canada for their reading week (where they are furiously working on a lab report for my course), but I have to mark a part of their midterm while I am down here. That's rather impossible to do with all the wildlife distractions…I wonder if I'll be grading them on the plane ride home.

Arrived in Isabela

Long distance flight is for chumps. I don't know how birds do it. Not to sound like I'm complaining, but it really is a long journey to get to Isabela Island from Toronto. Not helped when bird gets sucked into the plane engine at JFK airport and causes a delay in your flight…I would like to take a moment to reflect on that poor bird and what happened to it. Honestly, though…take a look at where JFK airport is located! It's right on the ocean near a wildlife refuge!! Duh, of course there will be birds flying nearby. Anyhow, I think the theme of some future blog posts will be the stupidity of human/animal interactions, and I'm not talking about the animals. We build things right in front of natural animal corridors and expect animals to change? Anyhow, that delayed me a day in NY, then I arrived in Guayquil, Ecuador and had another overnight delay to catch the morning flight to Baltra, Galapagos. At this stage, I lucked out…took the bus, then boat, then taxi, then another boat and arrived 5 hours later in Isabela.



Once I saw the Pelicans, I knew I was in the right place! I'm also trying out my new camera, a Nikon 5200D with 18-55 and 55-300 mm lens. So far, amazing pics!! Stay tuned, I might be able to upload them, assuming the internet works here.

Wish me luck!

Starting up the blog again here…just a brief post, but I am heading back to Galapagos, so what better time to write. I don't think anyone wants to hear about what I have to say about zoology and physiology in Niagara region on a regular basis. Anyhow, I'll be spending 11 days with the Isabela Oceanographic Institute tagging along a field course run by the University of Miami. I'll try to post pictures or musings. The (slightly) comical aspect of this trip is that I found out before my trip that my status in Galapagos is uncertain. Apparently the authorities at the airport did not have a record that I left in May, which implies that I have been hiding out somewhere on the Galapagos without permission. As I sit here in the airport at Toronto waiting for my flight, I have just had word from the officials in Galapagos that my paperwork has finally reached the authorities. It's déjà vu all over again. This is precisely what our last trip was like, when we received our visas via email on the flight down. Brinkmanship is the name of the game here. Anyhow, wish me luck. Hopefully my next post will be from near the equator.

Bird of a feather flock together

This past weekend, I was lucky to take part in a symposium honouring my good colleague, Russell Greenberg. The Greenberg Innovation Sessions were organized by Ray Danner and Julie Danner (my friends!) and members of the Smithsonian Institute. I was lucky enough to visit and meet all these folks during this trip. The pictures are attached just to give a shout out to the birds.

It was fun to meet and hang out with ornithologists. We go to tour banding stations and see an eco-restoration project taking place on the largest "farm" in Maryland.

We heard original talks and hypotheses ranging from dispersal mechanisms, sexual selection, conservation biology, to ecophysiology. All by people who have worked with or been inspired by Russ. In short, it was a blast. I used to think I was fairly integrative in the approach I take, but sitting through over 20 talks on ecology and evolutionary biology of birds has made me re-calibrate that opinion. Anyhow, I learned that we should never fear to come up with a hypothesis and finding a way to test it. Also, this conference was accompanied by social media by Ray Danner, so here is my hashtag to the sessions: #rgis13

Long time, no post - A tribute to my Avian Colleagues

It's been a while since I've posted on here. Somehow it is easier to come up with ideas to blog about when you are on a tropical island surrounded by wonderful flora and fauna. I am sitting in my office back at Brock University watching the hummingbird make regular visits to the feeder located inches from my head.

However, I want to use this opportunity to acknowledge some significant developments in my new found interest in avian physiology. Let this be an example of the funner aspects of science and the rewards of serendipitous research interests. I'll post this as a chronology here, but the reality is that this research has resulted from being allowed an unfettered approach to research. I fear that if I had specifically applied to granting agencies to do various aspects of this work, it is doubtful we would have been successful in being funded. Long live curiosity-based science! Of course, now that this curiosity science has helped to answer some questions for me, I am more and more interested in pursuing these questions in a more formal manner, but I won't bore people with those details.

2006-2009: I published a paper on the toco toucan bill's losing significant amounts of body heat. Unplanned, but this generated a bit of publicity and helped me become introduced to some wonderful scientists and colleagues (see below). Thanks to my Brasilian co-authors, Dr. Augusto Abe and Dr. Denis Andrade for introducing me to these wonderful animals and to basically introducing me to this question.

2009: While writing up the paper above, I happened to be in Melbourne, Australia visiting my friend, Dr. Matthew Symonds. As he is more mathematically inclined, I asked him to collaborate on a project examining the evidence in the published literature for Allen's Rule in Bird bills. Remarkably, we found pretty strong evidence for this and published a neat account of this in American Naturalist. Since this paper, I've become more interested in assessing the influence of the environment on morphology and physiology of birds.

2010 - present: Meanwhile, I received an email from Dr. Russell Greenberg at the Smithsonian Institute about bird bills and heat loss and whether temperature might be explaining some of the variation in observations he was making in numerous sparrow species around North America. Russ invited my student, Viviana Cadena to work with him and Ray Danner on this project, which led to a paper showing that two subspecies of song sparrows use their bills differently for heat exchange. Working with Russ and Ray has opened my eyes to the field of evolutionary physiology.

2010 - present: Meanwhile again, I struck up a conversation with my friend and colleague Dr. Gary Burness at Trent University who does much work on avian stress physiological ecology and convinced him to collaborate on a project with his undergraduate, Jacqueline Huard on the potential plasticity of bill growth as a function of temperature in Japanese quail. The fruits of this project were just published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society - B and also just highlighted in Nature. We also discovered that temperature during early life may have long lasting effects into adulthood physiology.

2012 - present: Russ Greenberg suggested we apply to National Geographic Society to carry on our interests in the Galapagos and we were successful. This is also the time I started this blog, inspired by the camaraderie and collaborations of those above. Let's hope I can continue to update this chronology with studies with great people and scientists. I was able to meet Dr. Jaime Chaves and start interacting with evolutionary biologists studying Darwin's Finches.

To wrap this up, it's been a blast. Thanks to all these people above and I hope for many future research opportunities. I wish all research were like this

Get the rats off the island!

On the night before I was heading off Galapagos, I took the thermal camera outside thinking it might be helpful in finding birds roosting. I wish I had good images to share with you, but although I did see roosting birds, I was more intrigued and disturbed by mammals crawling in the trees. These mammals were invasive rats crawling around the very trees within our finches live. I hasten to wonder whether they were targeting birds or their nests.


(Source: http://www.nature.com/news/invasive-species-the-18-km2-rat-trap-1.12992?WT.mc_id=FBK_NatureNews )

Then, I see this post on Nature News about the Galapagos efforts to get the rats off the islands. I suspect this will be an uphill battle of epic proportions. Let's hope they make some progress.

My journey in Galapagos is about to end...

Tomorrow morning I head back to Canada, but with a long face. I can hardly say I am looking forward to getting back to work on the mundane paperwork required for university administration, but such is what awaits me. My annual report is due 3 days ago, but I've not had a chance to tick all the boxes justifying my existence. I wonder if my blog counts? We have had a productive research trip here. It may seem odd that I have rarely blogged about our research, but for good reason I felt it appropriate not to talk about the research here, for fear of pre-judging our data or indeed scooping ourselves! Actually, when we received the National Geographic Society grant last November, it came with rules about not keeping a blog about the research and not having a documentary team filming us without NGS approval. I think I've kept pretty well away from blogging about our research here, at least until we publish it. :) As for the documentary team, well, unless one was hiding in the bushes here... Anyhow, my personal thanks go to the employees of the Charles Darwin Research Station who have helped guide us through the permitting process, the Galapagos National Park officials whose responsibility for conserving the Galapagos islands and their flora and fauna is immense, and to Jaime Chaves who helped to train us in finch identification and led us to our field sites. I look forward to seeing you all again next year! Hasta luego, Galapagos.

He who started it all...

Certainly, Darwin has a heavy presence in the Galapagos. Poor Wallace gets overlooked here more than anywhere. There are Darwin's finches. You can order Darwin's rolls at the sushi restaurant. There is the Charles Darwin Research Station. Little islands are named after the Beagle. You almost get the impression that Darwin spent his entire 5 year voyage in the Galapagos, which is ironic since they probably stopped here to pick up tortoises for meat for their voyage. Anyhow, here is the rather askance looking Charles Darwin in the town of Puerto Ayora. We walk past this statue every day. We have yet to see a portrait of Darwin smiling although apparently one does exist.



It is ironic that we are investigating the adaptive thermal biology of Darwin's finches, when the finches were not actually high on Darwin's radar. The mockingbirds, on the other hand, Darwin did recognize as separate species on different islands. Wish I had my copy of the Origin with me, as I'd be able to read up on it while I am here.

Mosquitoes even prey on the iguanas

On my walk home from dinner last night I stumbled across a marine iguana that had managed to find itself a warm secluded hiding spot. It was quite interesting to find so many mosquitoes targeting it while ignoring me. Neat but sad to think of ectotherm specialist mosquitoes.

Long distance travellers

Just when you think that every animal down here is new to you, you then discover a familiar friend, the Great Blue Heron. So apparently they are pretty widespread, as we have them in Canada. Funny though….this one let me get quite close whereas those I see in Canada are skittish. Funny how fear of humans is learned. I'd be scared of us at the first sight myself.

Are we studying them, or are they studying us?

I always feel like I am being watched here in Galapagos. Not the authorities who seem to keep a tight lid on anything, but the animals. Given that most have no or little fear of humans, they are quite approachable. However, even when you are in the field doing something, you feel like the wildlife is watching you. Chances are, something is sitting in a tree or bush looking down at you with little apparent desire to flee. Case in point, here is a small ground finch that has flown into my room and is perched beside my journal. Maybe he wants to add a note? Perhaps something whispered to him by other scientists?

Some like it hot...

In theory, I could post a complete thermal image library of Galapagos fauna, but I'm saving that for my big 'coffee table thermal image book' that will make me millions. Meanwhile, here are a few crabs basking/avoiding the sun. What I find incredible here is how fast things heat up in the sun. These crabs were moving quite a lot, yet you still see how the little bit of shade offered along a rock wall affords them the ability to alter temperature quickly. You heard it here…anytime someone says that ectotherms/cold blooded animals simply conform to the temperature of their environment you can tell them 'nope'! Bask away crustaceans. Those of you who like to eat crabs are probably salivating right now.

Giant tortoises - cows of the Galapagos

I was invited to accompany the giant tortoise research group to track some of their tortoises in the highlands here on Santa Cruz. We found "Sir David Attenborough", a tortoise named after the inimitable narrator of all life on earth… Anyhow, it's amazing to think that before humans exploited the Galapagos, there were an estimated 300,000 tortoises on the entire island archipeligo. Not often you think of an ectotherm as the predominant grazer in the landscape. Modern day cows (see the background) are common on the inhabited islands as sources of food and milk for people who live here, but on Santa Cruz island, the native tortoise population has rebounded to ~5000 individuals (10 of whom we came across the other day during our hike through the highlands.

Years ago, goats were introduced and became resident and wild and were responsible for outcompeting the tortoises on numerous islands in the Galapagos. The goat eradication program seems to have been a success. So much so that nearly every taxi driver we meet has had a prior job working as a goat eradicator. I presume if it was still lucrative business they would not be driving cabs.

Side experiments on plants?

I've been watching closely a bunch of bananas in our room with the thermal camera, and notice a little bit of heat production:



Heat from the ripening process? This little side project was going well until one of my room mates started to eat my experimental subjects.

Woodpecker finch!

One of the first woodpecker finches we've seen. This juvenile was quite amusing, as it was following it's mother around begging for food and perhaps learning how to search for insects. He didn't do anything impressive with sticks or tools, sadly.

His mother, on the other hand, was quite a busy bird, and at one stage appeared to be using a piece of twine for something (not just nest material gathering) - as she would pull this twine with her bill, then hold it in her claw and further pull on it with her bill. Quite determined. Anyhow, here she is feasting on a caterpillar she just happened upon. Looks like she is only eating the guts:

Caterpillar control

I really like these Galapagos Mockingbirds. They're everywhere here and they provide endless entertainment. They defend their little patches of territory against all intruders, dangerous or benign. I saw one have a tete a tete with an ani bird (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ani_(bird)) this morning. This one below has hit the jackpot with a juicy caterpillar and seems to be taking its frustrations out on the caterpillar by whacking it to death. We never said nature was nice… beware the overly sentimental statements people make about animals...




Maybe long necks can be adaptive for something other than foraging?

Everyone can probably look up the origin of the word Galapagos, which was given to these islands based on the tortoises found here. The giant tortoises (not all of them, mind you) have saddle shaped shells, from which the term galapagos comes from. On top of that is the variance in shell morphology seen in turtles from island to island. Apparently, although they differ tremendously from island to island, the consensus is that there are ~11 (sub)species of the giant tortoise. I am still trying to wrap my head around which is which, but we see them every day here at the research station. Breeding (or attempts at breeding!) are common. Tortoise grunting can be heard from the bushes all around us, along with the 'fingernails on chalkboard' sounds of claws on shells.
I never thought a tortoise could grin, but here is a pretty cheeky male:



Same male demonstrating some rather intimate face-to-face contact with his less than impressed mate. It does show that a long neck can be useful for something other than that hard to reach plant.

Pishing gets you the birds...not to be mistaken with Phishing.

I've known for years that birders 'pish' to get songbirds to come out of bushes or even to fly toward you, but it has rarely worked for me in Canada. All it does is make you look silly for making pishing sounds. However, in trying to obtain thermal images of various finches here, we invariably have to find a way to call them in. A fine catch with this beautiful yellow warbler:

Destroyers of Galapagos Fauna!

In the ongoing saga of finchdom (yep…that's what I'm calling the Galapagos now). Finchdom. The land of the finches. Finchtastic. Well, you get the point. So, in the previous instalment you did not see any bill action. The juvenile finches seem a little perplexed at what they are supposed to do. They follow ma and pa finch around picking up random bits of stuff on the ground and try it out. Here, however, is the monster of all finches. Destroying the plant life!

This is a large ground finch (male) with a soft seed pod in toe, pit by pit destroying this plant.

And here is the aftermath. Looks a little like a destroyed halloween pumpkin:


Witness the carnage all around it.

Name that finch!

Whether it be truth or myth, there is an expression in many Galapagos field guides: "It is only a very wise man or a fool who thinks that he is able to identify all the finches which he sees." (From: http://people.rit.edu/rhrsbi/GalapagosPages/DarwinFinch.html) - actual source is Michael Harris' field guide. This is so very true. The small and medium ground finches can usually be discerned easily in some field sites, but in others…boy there can be overlapping distributions. Same can be said for the medium compared to the large ground finch. Here is a little visitor to our porch, looking to me like a juvenile medium ground finch (hopefully the finch mafia isn't following my blog in case I've mis-identified this one!):

Beach? What Beach?

Hard at work, scorching myself in the sun. Rumours that I have melted in the heat in Galapagos are close to being true. Still, I have plenty of sun block and am off to sit under my tarpoline blind and hope the little finches come to my camera. Meanwhile, here is the sign that we pass every day on our walk into town. There is a public beach right at the research station:

Lava gulls want in on the action

Apparently there are only about 400 pairs of breeding lava gulls on the islands. We seem to be near the most persistently bothersome ones, as this individual here has decided he would rather be in the limelight. Note how he has nicely placed himself squarely where we are trying to obtain thermal images of Darwin's finches. Maybe he fancies himself a finch? I have a nice thermal image of his hot little legs somewhere on one of my electronic devices...

Pirates….oh, no never mind…just tourist boats.

A view from our cabin (which is almost on the ocean, except for the invasive plant species ruining our view!!) at the Charles Darwin Research station reveals a constant stream of boats coming in. Being on what is effectively a desert island, I initially thought this was a pirate ship. Then I remembered that I watched Pirates of the Caribbean on the flight down here, so perhaps my imagination got the better of me.

Galapagos Intern

So, we've decided to hire the local mockingbird. Well, hire is a lose term. Like many student interns and volunteers, he is paid nothing. Science is, after all, a passion, and not a means to get rich. But we cannot exactly feed him peanuts either. Anyhow, here he is setting up our equipment in the field:
And inspecting the cables to make sure they are connected to the computer:

Looks like he even knows how to add an extension cable:
If I had had an opportunity to volunteer as a student, I'd have jumped at the chance! I wonder if he knows about IP agreements and has assumptions of co-authorship…please don't tell research services or HR that we have an unpaid intern who has not had his health and safety training.

To kill a mockingbird? How could you!? Perhaps simply to film a mockingbird?

We have been making great strides in our 'field thermography' project here. Finches are in great abundance and even allow us to get close enough for imagery. There are, of course, numerous other animals interesting enough to take thermographs of, and some are even keen to help out!! The Galapagos Mockingbird here has been frequenting our field site and is very curious of our technology. So much so that here it is sat perched on my thermal camera while I stopped to take some weather readings:

It is really quite adorable, although he likes to bully the other birds and chases the finches away from the camera. Not a very helpful field assistant.
Oh…some good news. I've just been invited to film some of the giant tortoises up close. I might actually get to do some tortoise Science!!

Hone your plant metabolism knowledge and Infrared Skills

Case note: Cactus plants are abundant here on Galapagos. Go back to your first year botany and see if you can explain why the cactus temperature is higher than other nearby plants.








































Sorry, I cut the top off on the thermal image above. Hint: it should have something to do with Crassulacean (spelling? I have no spell check here!) Acid Metabolism.

What manner of creature?

Yesterday, we took one of the ever-present white toyota trucks that whiz around Puerto Ayora up to a potential field site. These trucks act as taxis and I wonder if shipment of toyotas fell off a shipping container in the pacific and washed up on shore in the Galapagos (much like most of the creatures here). Anyhow, scoping out the field site for potential finch sightings, we stumbled across this interesting creature.

 

 I will allow the comments to see if you can guess as to what it is. Remember, there are no known venomous snakes in the Galapagos. This creature is about 5 inches long.

Galapagos Toroises at their finest

Our cabins at the station are located about 50 m away from the tortoise breeding program. Sometimes things can get a little heated

Btw still searching Internet. Currently borrowing from cafes in town

I wish I were an iguana!

Ok...We finally arrived at Charles Darwin Research Station.  Long day yesterday and after many buses, dragging suitcases and equipment through the heat we arrived close to the station and park entrance.  Only to find out that EVERYONE is at lunch.  Including the iguanas.

So, while waiting in the sun for the officials to come back and help us with our accommodation (etc.) I snapped a thermal image from the water.

Here is a marine iguana soaking up the sun's rays.  Skin temperatures of 45C.  This is how I will be over the next month.  Scorching and sunburnt!

Blog entries will be sporadic.  I think I managed to upload this image because the whole island just left for lunch and so the internet isn't swamped.

Anyhow!  Enjoy!

Arrival in Ecuador!

 Well, the first leg of the trip is over.  We arrived in Guayaquil late Monday evening.  I had no trouble with immigration, although I may have received a marriage proposal from the immigration officer.  Or at least she warned me not to fall in love in (or with?) Ecuador.  

Our taxi driver/hotel seemed to be confused. We booked a hotel at the lovely Guayaquil Suites Hotel.  Always be suspicious about something called ‘suites’.  Lovely place once we arrived (sweating and hauling our equipment laden suitcases), but it looked more like someone’s apartment/spare rooms than a hotel! 

Sorry for no photos.  Internet connection here requires patience, which I seem to lack when the weather is hot and the sweat is pouring off me.  

Departure to GPS imminent

Waiting for my flight to Galapagos.  Departing in a couple of hours.  Excited and slightly shocked that this is happening.

Will be in Puerto Ayora sometime tomorrow (16th April).

It's official! We're going to the Galapagos!!

It has been over a year in the making, and at times I was not sure it would happen at all, but we finally got our tickets to head to Galapagos.  I am using this as an excuse perhaps to start putting some effort into this blog.

Here's the context.  Back in 2009, I published a paper on the role of the bill of the toucan as a 'radiator of body heat' (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/325/5939/468.abstract).  Meanwhile, Russ Greenberg and his student/post-doc, Ray Danner were working on Song Sparrow ecology and bill size.  After reading my paper and contacting me, we started sharing ideas and Russ began to develop questions examining how bills of his birds may be shaped by their environment (temperature, water availability).

Anyhow, long story short....this led to Russ and Ray collaborating with my lab via my student, Viviana Cadena who spent a couple of months in Ray's lab working on heat loss parameters in song sparrows.  (see below).

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Figure 1. Infrared images of eastern and Atlantic song sparrows.

This work with sparrows showed that the bill in these birds can represent up to ~9% of resting body heat loss.

Last year, along with Russ, Ray and Viviana, we submitted a grant to the National Geographic Society to go to the Galapagos to test our research questions in Darwin's Finches.  I won't go into those details yet, but perhaps future blogs will shed some light.

Anyhow, heading out on Monday and will be away for a month.  Let's hope we don't have any trouble getting there!

For a summary of this work, here is a great blog from Jack Dumbacher.