After almost two months in the rainforest, it is time to return to Texas. I am proud to say this was a successful field season. I walked on nearly every trail in the reserve, successfully deploying my camera traps and acoustic recorders and taking vegetation measurements at all sites. Overall, I have nearly 8,000 wildlife photos and over 800 hours of recordings. Thankfully I am able to use various programs to help me automatically identify species in my data. After I know which species were found at which site, I can create food webs weighted by the occupancy of each species, and compare these webs across the differing vegetation and forest types of each site to look for patterns. This work will help us understand how disturbance to a forest impacts the species interactions and ecosystem functioning. By understanding these impacts, we can predict how future human-induced changes to landscapes can impacts species and use this knowledge in conservation planning decisions...
Read Annie's full blog here: https://anniefinneran.weebly.com/blog
Annie's trip was funded by the Expanding Horizons Scholarship, generously provided by alumnus Walter Loewenstern.
About the author:
Annie Finneran is a current Ph.D. student in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. She got her BS in Biology with a Minor in Conservation Studies from UCLA in 2021. Read more.
Further Reading:
Research and Explorations in Community Ecology
Understanding Cervical Cancer in Mozambique: A Research Expedition
Exploring the Unseen Strains – A Deep Dive into Research on Musician Injuries