The Expeditioner - April 2008

Greetings, Expeditioners!

We're excited to announce that, after careful deliberation, Earthwatch has resumed its longstanding research operations in Kenya, now recovering from recent political unrest. This news offers a wealth of expedition choices, from the beautiful Samburu savanna to the coastal mangrove forests, and a rare chance for your involvement to have a direct, immediate positive impact on a region.

Your support of our Kenya projects now will preserve the value of years of data—at risk due to the earlier interruptions in fieldwork—and lead the way to a more sustainable and stable future for the country. Find out more about our Kenyan and other African projects.

In this issue of The Expeditioner, you’ll learn about our work in the stunning Bahamas, where teenagers are helping save coral reefs, and hear the latest news from our Belize Regional Initiative, where queen conchs are king.

You’ll also meet one of the most adventurous women we know, an inspiration for would-be expeditioners everywhere despite being so tiny and trim that Dr. Larry Agenbroad (Mammoth Graveyard) describes her as “having to stand twice to make a shadow.” Finally, you’ll learn about the Starbucks teams in Costa Rica through the experience of one lucky participant who inspired a generous grant from her employer, Hewlett Packard.

Banner photo:
Bahamian Reef Survey, © John Rollino

If you ever doubted that Nature has a sense of irony, consider the toco toucan. These fruit-eating birds with improbably large beaks are both a major predator of hyacinth macaw eggs and the most important seed disperser for the trees hyacinth macaws nest in. This finding, reported in the March 2008 issue of the journal Biological Conservation by former Earthwatch principal investigators, stands to be one of the most extraordinary examples yet discovered of conflicting ecological pressures.
           
Endangered hyacinth macaws are the largest members of the parrot family, and are native to the Pantanal wetlands of Central Brazil, were they nest almost exclusively in natural hollows found in the manduvi tree. These trees have large, spiny fruits, and toco toucans alone disperse more than 80 percent of the seeds that assure the next generation. Yet the same toucans are also responsible for more than half of hyacinth macaw eggs lost to predation. The reproduction rate of hyacinth macaws is therefore dependent on seed dispersal by its worst enemy.
           
“This is the most compelling example we know of illustrating how intricate nature is,” said Dr. Mauro Galetti, former principal investigator of Earthwatch’s Conserving the Pantanal project. “We do believe this paper is going to become a textbook example of how we need to better understand the intricate interactions among species.”
           
In their four years of research Galleti and his colleagues knew they would find some unexpected results simply because they were among the first to study fruits and frugivores in the region. When they started to investigate the manduvi, one of the tallest trees in the Pantanal, it was just another tree for which they wanted to determine what species dispersed its seeds. But when they analyzed the results of many hours of watching manduvis and found that only two bird species could actually disperse the seeds, they realized the toco toucan's unique role.

“Protecting the manduvi is a major step for protecting the endangered hyacinth macaw,” said Galetti. “If the toco toucan disappeared from the Pantanal because of the pet trade, disease, deforestation, or hunting, the hyacinth macaw would have difficulties finding manduvi trees in the future. At the same time, if the toco toucan population increased too much, they will have a strong impact on macaw nest predation.”

The support of Earthwatch volunteers was instrumental in this exciting finding, because they supplied the many hours of focal studies that identified the seed dispersers of the manduvi.

“Some of them did not realize how important it was to watch a tree for hours to see if some thing would come to eat the fruits,” said Galetti. “But none declined the hard work, and all of them got very detailed information, even filming the toucan activity on manduvis. It would have taken several years to reach the same conclusions without Earthwatch volunteers to help us.”

Photo © Jeff Himmelstein

Hyacinth macaws. Photo © Carolyn Hine.

Earthwatch Teen Teams Look for Concrete Ways to Save Coral Reefs in the Bahamas

It sounds like the set-up for a joke: What do you get when you put a former US Navy Seabee, a team of 16- and 17-year-old volunteers from the US, some local high school students, and an artificial coral block together in the Bahamas?

But it’s not a joke at all. With a lot of hard work, cutting-edge ecological restoration science, and little bit of luck, you get a far-from-funny outcome: a cross-cultural, international teen-to-teen volunteer partnership, a way to reinvigorate coral reefs, and maybe even support for the creation of a protected marine park along 12 miles of the Bahamian coast.

The Bahamian Reef Survey stands out even among the long list of amazing Earthwatch projects. Principal investigator John Rollino, a senior ecologist at Earth Tech, Inc., first welcomed an organized Earthwatch Teen Team to the project in the summer of 2006, and was thrilled to do so.

"Working with teenagers is very rewarding," said Rollino. "Through their participation on the project, we are fortunate to play a part in educating the next generation of scientists on the challenges facing a unique, ecologically and economically important ecosystem."

If all goes well, Rollino said, the coming years will see the creation of a marine park (currently under consideration in the Bahamian Parliament), a solidified partnership between Earthwatch Teen Teams and Bahamian high school students studying marine science, and lots of “pre-fab” housing for coral looking to settle down in the tropics.

Coral reefs are the most productive and diverse marine ecosystems in the world, yet drastic declines in the Caribbean over the last 30 years—including devastating bleaching events that cause them to lose their color—have threatened these vital aquatic wonders.

Earthwatch teams working with Rollino and his colleagues on San Salvador in the Bahamas have collected data on the island’s changing coral reef over the last 16 years—making it the longest-running coral reef data set in the Atlantic. They have documented an astounding 90 percent decline of elkhorn and staghorn corals, once the most important reef-building species throughout the Caribbean. These corals were listed as "threatened" under the US Endangered Species Act in June 2006.

Rollino hopes that cementing artificial surfaces onto denuded coral reefs might give them a fighting chance to reestablish themselves. He and his team knew that concrete would most likely provide the best surface. But he didn’t have the expertise to lead volunteers—especially teens—in mixing it, molding it, shaping it, and floating it out for delivery to the right spots along the reef.

That is, he didn’t until earlier this year when the project got help from an unexpected source: the US Navy. Or, more precisely, the benefit of 28 years of construction experience as a Seabee in its service, embodied in the skill and goodwill of volunteer Bob Cassidy.

Cassidy, who has a winter home in nearby Florida, did exactly that kind of concrete work for decades in the Navy, before owning a contracting business in Utica, NY. He was drawn into Rollino’s work when his daughter Lisa Montana, a staff scientist on the reef project, told him about it.
 
Cassidy trained Rollino and the other scientists and volunteers on the project in how to make and install the best mix of concrete for their purposes. With a few test deliveries now in place, Rollino’s Earthwatch teams—including this year’s Teen Teams—will snorkel to study how these artificial reef implants are working, and will keep refining the method as the data comes in.

In the meantime, Teen Teams and other Earthwatch volunteers will continue making hands-on repairs to broken sections of the reef as needed—actually wiring broken pieces back to the main reef as one would graft a plant cutting back onto the main branch.

Also exciting is the possibility that local teens from nearby San Salvador High School will join Rollino’s Teen Teams in the water soon. Discussions with the school are underway, Rollino said, and his project may be able to provide field experience for new marine science classes. What he knows for sure is that he and the reefs need all the help they can get.

According to Rollino, the reefs in the Bahamas are suffering. In the worst case scenarios, reefs that permanently collapse—whether in response to global warming, ocean acidification, pollution run-off, or other problems—would leave entire regions permanently robbed of their marine biodiversity. Reefs would go from being some of the ocean’s best housing developments for marine life to being miles and miles of aquatic headstones.

But Rollino’s learned over the years that reefs can be tenacious, and are in the fight to the final bell. And in the waters off San Salvador, at least, reefs have an international group of enthusiastic teenagers and a former Navy guy who’s good with concrete in their corner.

Volunteer placing transect grid over reef site. Photo © John Rollino

Coral community. Photo © John Rollino

Watch a video of an Earthwatch Teen Team snorkeling the Bahamian reef. Find out more about this Earthwatch Teen Team Expedition. Find out more about all of our Teen Teams.

Snorkeling to the study site. Photo © John Rollino

The idyllic turquoise waters off Belize are apparently a great place to be if you are a juvenile conch. This is just one of the many important findings in a recent report from Sapodilla Cayes Marine Reserve (SCMR), part of the Belize Barrier Reef World Heritage Site. The report marks the first year of comprehensive data collection by local researchers, as well as by Earthwatch teams working at the Belize Regional Initiative, providing a baseline that will allow future teams to monitor changes in plant and animal populations.
           
“2007 represented a pivotal year in the collection of data in Sapodilla Cayes Marine Reserve,” said Christina Garcia, a principal investigator of Earthwatch’s Coastal Ecology of the Sapodilla Cayes project. Garcia is technical coordinator of the local Toledo Association for Sustainable Tourism and Empowerment (TASTE), which collaborated with the Belize Fisheries Department to collect the baseline data in the report. “The data collected to date have provided a clearer picture as to the status of the resources within the marine reserve.”

Queen conchs are a very visible part of the Sapodilla Cayes ecosystem and a commercially important species for local fishermen. Monitoring studies by TASTE found an average of 98 of these magnificent mollusks per hectare, excluding a well-known nursery site where conch densities were in the thousands. This finding is incredibly valuable, as populations with fewer than 50 conchs per hectare are too sparse to reproduce.

“The super high juvenile conch density was a great result,” said principal investigator Jocelyn Rae Finch, science coordinator at TASTE. “It illustrates that the SCMR is still a viable nursery area.”

Despite high densities at a number of sites, only one site had significant numbers of sexually mature conchs. Out of 842 conchs surveyed in 2007, less than 10 percent had a shell flare thickness of 5 millimeters; this may not sound too sexy, but it is used to identify sexual maturity in conchs. Only 18 percent were of legal size for commercial fishing (shell length of 178 millimeters). These findings suggest that fishing pressure on mature individuals is extremely high, perhaps unsustainable, at many shallow sites.

In addition to establishing baseline data, the State of the Park Report for Sapodilla Cayes evaluates gaps in the data and provides suggestions for improving monitoring methods.
In the example cited above, the low densities of mature conchs may be skewed by a sampling design that includes only one deeper site, where conchs are known to spawn. Plans for 2008 include adding one or two more deep sites, as well as sites zoned for different levels of fishing pressure to measure the effects of management actions.

“We are using this report to help us improve our monitoring efforts so that they can give us a better idea about what is really happening at the SCMR,” said Finch.

Conchs are just one of the many species monitored by TASTE and included in the State of the Park Report for Sapodilla Cayes Marine Reserve. Earthwatch teams have been monitoring coral reef health, in particular, and the incidence of coral bleaching. Marine turtles, sea birds, lobsters, corals, and reef fish all get equal time in the report, and each will benefit from more informed management decisions in Sapodilla Cayes as well as the rest of the spectacular Belize Barrier Reef.

Queen conch on the ocean floor in the Sapodilla Cayes.
Photo © Burton Shank

Algae encrusted conch.
Photo © Burton Shank

When Vetris (“Vee”) Lamb first joined the Mammoth Graveyard project, she was 71 years old but, she dug with the same enthusiasm and energy as those half her age. That was a while ago, and she's still digging! After joining 34 teams on Mammoth Graveyard, as well as working on archaeology projects in Buenos Aires and Easter Island and a dinosaur project in Montana, Vee might be considered the reigning matriarch of Earthwatch dig sites. And she’s holding onto that crown: Vee’s signed up for two more teams at the Mammoth Site this summer.

Even before pitching in on Earthwatch-supported projects, Vee had dug into her fair share of historical sites. Her first was at Fort Le Boeuf, the historic French fort in her native Pennsylvania, in 1978. A 21-year-old solider named George Washington was sent from Fort Le Boeuf in 1753 to deliver a message demanding that the French leave Ohio; you probably know of most of his later military and political career. Vee recalls finding a few cannonballs at this Colonial site and being hooked from that moment of discovery.

“I took several courses in archaeology, so I would know how to do it right,” said Vee, who is semi-retired from a career in payroll and personnel and continues to do estate work. She ran an antique shop for 29 years along with her 8-to-5 job and is still a self-proclaimed “auction addict.” She is involved with half a dozen local historical societies, and is kept very busy doing volunteer work, including archaeological digs. “I’ve worked at several Native American sites locally and in Illinois. I’m busy all the time.”

Vee learned about Earthwatch in Archaeology magazine, and soon made herself an indispensable asset at the Mammoth Site with her energy and expertise. “The food is good, and the local people are very friendly,” said Vee. “They treat you like you are somebody. I go down the street, and people know who I am. They say, ‘Hi Vee!’”

“Vee is one of my very best Earthwatch team members,” said Dr. Larry Agenbroad, principal investigator of Mammoth Graveyard for more than 30 years. “If I need something done that takes extreme care and patience, Vee is my choice. She is always positive and an inspiration to others. It is a treat, for everyone involved, to have Vee on the crew.”

Vee often works on the southwest corner of the pit, in what has been called the “bone pile,” famous as a repository for the remains of a short-faced bear plus a mammoth skull with a tusk and jawbone overlying it. As excavation progressed in adjacent areas, the bone pile has remained as an elevated pedestal with steep sides. Two years ago, in order to remove the sediment near the mammoth skull, Vee had to work close to the perilous edge.

“Not taking a chance on an accidental fall off the pedestal, crew chief Don Morris and I rigged Vee in a climbing harness and tied her off to the fence,” said Agenbroad. “She gained a lot of attention...a small, seemingly frail lady in a climbing harness, roped to a fence. I would bet it was the first time in her life she had been in climbing gear.”

Of course Vee took this all in stride, like any other challenge in her time on the Mammoth Site. “It’s an honor to dig there,” she said. “Anything you find is a gem. Of course, working inside in the air-conditioning, you can’t beat that. I’m tickled to do it, so long as I’m physically able.”

Learn more about the Mammoth Graveyard project.

Vee Lamb prepares to excavate at the Mammoth Graveyard site

Vee digging for mammoth bones

Can you see Vee? She's at the top, above the mammoth tusks, working with another Earthwatch volunteer.

Photos © Yoka Heijstek

When Maggie Sanche, a Hewlett-Packard (HP) employee in Alberta, Canada, stopped by a local Starbucks coffee shop last spring, all she expected was a cup of hot chocolate. What she got was the chance of a lifetime to make a real difference in the lives of coffee farmers thousands of miles away. After submitting an application to the Starbucks Earthwatch Expedition 2007, Sanche was one of 20 people from across the U.S. and Canada selected to join Earthwatch-supported researchers at Coope Tarrazú, a coffee cooperative in central Costa Rica. Her life-altering experience even helped inspire a generous grant to Earthwatch from her employer, HP.
 
The opportunity to join an Earthwatch team in Costa Rica held special meaning for Sanche, for several reasons. As a person of Hispanic descent, she saw this as a chance to learn Spanish and immerse herself in a Latin American culture. Her family had also been farmers in Saskatchewan, so she understood the hard choices that farmers are faced with on a daily basis. But most importantly, it meant she had a chance to help a community engage in sustainable coffee practices and reduce its impact on the environment. 
 
“This program gave me a great opportunity to help protect and preserve both the Earth’s natural resources and the traditional way of life of Costa Rica’s coffee farmers,” said Sanche. She particularly liked meeting local families and seeing how central their culture, homes, and children are to them. “It gave me a much better sense of the local culture and how important it is to preserve people’s differences and help them celebrate the things they love. The trip allowed me to talk to anyone I meet about global warming, the importance of ‘smart farming,’ sustainability, and how lucky we all are to have this Earth.”

Working on some of the 2,600 farms in Coope Tarrazú, team members collected data on soil conditions, shade tree coverage, and coffee plant condition. The volunteers also mapped out biodiversity indicators, including the number and types of trees in the forest. All of these data will be analyzed using geographic information system (GIS) technology to explore factors affecting farm sustainability.

“This expedition was really about gathering the scientific data that researchers can use to help the local farmers build better crops and better manage their farms,” said Sanche. “Our research will enable farmers to improve how they work and hopefully create more environmentally sustainable farming processes for the future.” 

Sanche’s work in Costa Rica was an inspiration to her community at home and her coworkers, who eagerly shared in her photos and stories. HP responded by further supporting Earthwatch through a grant of more than $100,000 in both technology and training. Donated computers, pocket PCs, cameras, printers, networking products, and a server will enable Earthwatch to improve its field science activities in Costa Rica and around the world. Enhancements to Earthwatch’s web infrastructure and the addition of streaming video capabilities will also improve our ability to alert people to pressing environmental challenges.

And it all started with a cup of hot chocolate.

Film’s Finest Hour
Although it had already won numerous awards, we can imagine no more appropriate recipient for this year’s Earthwatch Film Award than The 11th Hour - now available on DVD - and we were thrilled to honor the film’s creators on March 20 in front of a sold-out crowd of more than 400 at the National Geographic Society’s headquarters in Washington, DC during the 2008 Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital.

This uncompromising and inspirational portrait of our endangered planet, co-produced and narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, moves viewers to seize this moment and put right what humans have put so wrong. Earthwatch continues its support of the film’s message and mission by participating in the The 11th Hour Action Campaign’s Campus Tour, and we invite you to visit the site and see how you can become a hero for the planet.

Travelocity Travel Grants
Want to join an Earthwatch team but wonder whether you can afford the contribution? One exciting option is outside travel grants, like the Travelocity Travel for Good program. Find out how Dallas resident Emily Kinney applied a Travelocity grant to study the behavior of Grevy’s zebras in the Samburu region of Kenya.

Loggerhead Blog
Earthwatch teams off the southern coast of Spain are helping track a loggerhead turtle outfitted with a satellite transmitter last September. Right now "Alboran", as the turtle is known, is approaching the coast of Algeria, and the imminent threat of illegal drift nets. You can read blog updates from Ric Sagarminaga, principal investigator of Spanish Dolphins.

Wild Life in Mongolia
Teams on Wildlife of the Mongolian Steppe had a banner year of data collection in 2007, including radio-collaring 19 corsac and 19 red foxes and tagging 26 cinereous vultures and 16 kestrels. A draft management plan for Ikh Nart is now complete and a corps of six rangers is training for exciting careers in conservation management. Learn more at the project’s attractive new website.

Indiana Jones and the Temples of Tuscany
For those of you who are impatiently anticipating the thrills and chills of the next Indiana Jones movie, wait no longer! Our special archaeology and paleontology mini-guide is due to be released in May and is full of exciting information on Earthwatch projects in these fields. From excavating ancient shrines in Italy's Tuscan countryside to discovering a kingdom from England’s misty past, you can choose the next archaeological adventure in your future. But, please, leave your whip at home. To find out more, contact: info@earthwatch.org.

Of Lemurs and Leeches
When California writer Laurie King wrote about the Madagascar’s Lemurs project for the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine, she reported that imagining terrestrial leeches was far worse than actually experiencing them. But little did she imagine she would win two of this year’s coveted awards from Bay Area Travel Writers. King’s article won both the Gold Award for Best Travel Article for Planet Earth and the Silver for Best Newspaper Travel Article.
>> You can see why

Meerkat Mania
If you missed the third season of Meerkat Manor on Animal Planet, there are many other exciting meerkat prospects in your future. Dr. Tim Clutton-Brock, principal investigator of Earthwatch’s meerkat project, has just published Meerkat Manor: Flower of the Kalahari, available from Simon and Schuster in April. He also reports that a full-length film, narrated by Whoopi Goldberg, will appear in theaters later this year. Learn more about the fourth season of Meerkat Manor to begin airing in June.

Watch a video from the panel discussion that followed the screening of The 11th Hour at the Earthwatch Film Award event.

Weighing a loggerhead turtle in the Alboran Sea, Spain. Photo © Mark Eveleigh

Research assistant releasing a fox in Mongolia. Photo © Richard Reading

Volunteers sieve sediments for microfossils. Photo © Simon Reid

We hope you'll join us in the field soon, measuring conch shells, counting coffee beans, or digging through prehistoric mud in the name of science. Did we mention it’s healthier than sunbathing? If you’re looking for other ways to get involved with Earthwatch, with or without terrestrial leeches, please drop an email to: apalmer@earthwatch.org.

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Minke whale in the sunset. Photo © ORES, Ursula Tscherter

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