Submitted by Frank Gilliatt, Environmental Science Teacher and Peter Vacchina, Chemistry Teacher
During spring vacation, April 15-25, 2005, Hudson High School in Hudson, MA, sent two teachers and ten students to the Pantanal region of Southern Brazil to participate in Earthwatch Institute-sponsored research projects.
In teams of four each, we worked with internationally-recognized scientists who were running projects on bats, peccaries, and reptiles and amphibians.
As this was the first time Earthwatch researchers had worked at the Pousada Mangabal location, our students had the incredible opportunity of helping initiate a field research project with all of the planning, selection of sites, placement of traps, and the logic and ecological principles that guided their selection.
After checking several sites, the herpetology (reptiles and amphibians) group settled on a section of woods close enough to water and the other niche requirements of woodland frogs and reptiles. The afternoon was spent in digging holes for the pitfall traps, 30-gallon plastic garbage cans, and trenching a line between the traps. Two-foot plastic sheeting was placed in the trench line that bisected the garbage cans. The trench was filled in, securing the bottom of the plastic, and the top was held up by vertical stakes placed every six feet.
The hard work done, the traps were checked every morning. Centipedes, scorpions (lots of them), tarantulas, huge two-inch-long cockroaches, and other assorted bugs and spiders, along with a small marsupial possum, were removed with long, ten-inch forceps. The we removed the catch of frogs, toads, lizards, and snakes, bagged them, and took them back to our outdoor lab for speciation, sexing, measuring, weighing, and marking for future identification. The PI's were terrific about carefully explaining why their work was important. They explained the relationship of each species to the local food web and ecosystem as a whole.
Because of the sensitive nature of the relatively unprotected amphibian eggs, they are an excellent indicator of environmental health and are treated as an ‘indicator species." Amphibians also keep down the population of many insects, some of them harmful to plant growth in this ecosystem.
The bat project was a big favorite of our students. After a careful survey of sites, one area was found relatively close to the Pousada that possessed all of the food, shelter, water, and other niche requirements.
The "Bat Team" was overwhelmed that first evening. As they opened their mist nets, the nets immediately began to fill with bats! After over two hundred had been captured and all of the available bags had been used, the team attempted to close their nets at 12 midnight. The nets were not finally cleared until four a.m. Needless to say, we had some very tired campers the next day. The following day was used to classify measure and weigh each of the bagged bats. Feces samples were collected from the capture bags and parasites were carefully removed from the bat bodies and soaked in alcohol for further lab examination.
Students were surprised at the large number of different species collected, but they quickly became adept at identifying each species peculiar markings. The two bat researchers repeatedly explained the ecological niche of the bats in the Pantanal. We were all aware of the role bats play in keeping down insect populations, but we were amazed at their role in distributing seeds. Nearly all of the fruit-eating bats had the tiny seeds of a Pantanal pepper plant in their feces and the abundance of this important food species was testament to the bats' efficiency in their distribution. Another example of the cutting-edge research we saw was the collection of two new bat species during our visit. Further research will need to be done before we can positively say if they are completely new species or perhaps hybrid varieties. This research will have to be done at the University lab level with an examination of chromosomes, etc. We will wait anxiously to hear the results.
The peccaries research project did not work out as we had hoped, but it gave us the opportunity to see another side of scientific research, what happens when no data is collected. The answer is that no data is often as important as copious amounts of data!
Instead of dealing with peccaries, we had to determine why there were no peccaries. This we did by a careful food analysis. This area of the Pantanal has been extremely dry for the last three months and the usual peccary food sources have dried up and disappeared. We still put our allotted time to good use by surveying several likely areas for future study and by clearing a four kilometer transect through the largest wooded tract on the Mangabal ranch. This transect will prove invaluable for future studies in this area.
Precious little time was left for the Hudson students to pursue the project that researchers had pioneered two years ago at the Fazenda Rio Negro. We did manage to set out several track traps, but we did not have enough time to choose the best sites. It was, however, gratifying to see the enthusiasm of the PI's for our track traps. We even lost a small wager to the Pousada owner, Fernando, who collected better tracks than Mr. Vacchina and his team. All concerned were convinced of the validity and usefulness of this method of animal identification and enumeration and it will be incorporated in all future projects at the Pousada.
Not every hour was spent at hard work. We did have the opportunity to use the ranch's swimming hole on two occasions. The first time two of our students noticed a log floating about twenty yards away from the splashing students. Jeff, the herpetologist, identified the log as a cayman. Rather than be afraid, our students thought this was just about the "coolest thing they had ever done." We later spotted at least four cayman in the swimming hole, but that did not stop the students from jumping right in. Hard to decide if Hudson kids are very brave or very - well you get the idea!
Our Pantanal adventure ended with an open pit barbecue and a party attended by several ranchers from the area. The students acquitted themselves in admirable fashion, with the girls outlasting the boys by a considerable margin. Two of the young ladies in particular, Trish and Jane, must have put ten miles onto their dancing shoes. They initiated the dancing in the first place and made it a point to dance with every single person in attendance. Their endurance was truly spectacular and their attitude in general left a most favorable impression with the Pantaneiros. Jane and Trish were tremendous ambassadors for the Hudson community and the U.S. in general.
We would like to extend our deepest thanks to everyone who helped to contribute to this tremendous educational experience. What we learned will stay with us forever.
Read more at the Hudson H.S. Pantanal web site.