Oh, right, the fire ants...

I kinda just left ya hanging on the last post. Oops. Well, the fire ant thing is going rather swimmingly, I'm happy to report. We've collected and processed at all but two sites, so we should finish up the sampling stuff next week and be able to go home as scheduled. We had trouble finding enough colonies at a couple sites, so we may have to revisit those, and the power in my trailer keeps blinking on and off. Dammit. OK storm, you've had your fun, now go away. There we go, OK power, please stay on? Anyway, I've only been bitten/stung about 7 times and without any adverse reactions, so I'm pretty happy with the project. I'm really not looking forward to sampling at the 75 sites. These were abandoned several years ago and 2 new sites were created. Now, they have 10 foot tall blackberry stalks. Not kidding. One of the PIs has offered me his chaps and recommends carrying something to beat back vegetation with. We're gonna die. And now for your entertainment, here's a video of fire ants swarming:


Notice how my camera becomes possessed by Satan at the end of the video.
It's been doing that since I took it to Mexico.

It occurred to me recently, that I've never fully explained the Corridor Project. It can probably be gathered from the name that the project has to do with habitat corridors. The experimental landscape is pretty sweet, though. There are 8 sites with 5 patches: a square central patch (A), connected by a corridor to patch B (also square). There are three more patches (C, D, and E) surrounding A, but not connected. These patches are either rectangular or winged (they have half a corridor extending from 2 sides). C and E are always the same shape, and D is the other shape, and which is which varies between sites. The square patches are 150m X 150m, and all patches are separated by 150m of matrix. The matrix is the forest (mostly pine) between the clearcut patches. The patches are meant to be a restoration of longleaf pine savanna, a natural community in this area maintained by fire disturbance. Thus, prescribed burns are conducted at the sites every so often. Here's some pictures, because my explanation is probably confusing:

From center, then clockwise from top right: A, B, C, D, E

I think this is patch D at site 8 (could be wrong)

So this project has been around at least 15 years, with tons of experiments conducted and papers written. My project is only one of at least 10 going on right now. The original landscapes were a bit different from this, but this landscape was designed to test for more factors than just connectivity. Patch shape and edge effects can also play a role in explaining various environmental phenomena, and I'll get to see if they affect my project results in addition to connectivity. For its size, this particular experimental landscape is the best replicated in the world, so it's actually kind of exciting to work here. Who knows, maybe I'll come back here...

As for the people on the project, they're pretty awesome. I've been having a lot of fun with them, and I'm sad that it's getting to the end of the summer and people are starting to leave. Including people on other projects at SRS (they're awesome too), I think 6 or so have left, and it sucks that I'll probably never see them again. So we've done a lot of partying and going out in the last few weeks, which has been a kind of bittersweet fun. Anyway, I'm the next to go, so I'm expecting at least one more good party before then.

Since I feel bad for not updating much lately, if I'm bored enough tomorrow I might post some random stories, photos, etc that I've been meaning to all along. But only if I'm bored enough.

Abandon Ship!

The U.S.S Bunting shall sail no more! She carried us a long way, but her journey has ended. Alas, she's run aground on the Rock of Low Testosterone, and the Nesterly Winds are not enough to keep her going. We must board the SIA lifeboats and hope for rescue ship. Otherwise, our journey will have been in vain. Ahoy! The U.S.S. Fire Ant has responded to our S.O.S.! We're saved! The Generalist has offered to carry us to our destination, the Trophic Tropics, and it can do so much faster than the bunting could. Hooray!

See kids? Science is an adventure!

Yeah, Candice, Julian, and I had a conference call with Dr. Levey and decided that we weren't going to be able to collect enough blood samples to conclude anything about trophic niche. So in order to stay with the stable isotope analysis and trophic niche premise, we decided to pick another generalist species that would be easy to collect. Fire ants are everywhere and eat everything (almost). Fire ants it is, then.

Fortunately, our collection method of grabbing a handful in a ziploc bag, then throwing them in a freezer at the end of the day, will minimize the potential for bites/stings. Once they're dead from the freezing, we'll pick out however many we need for SIA, label them, and hand them over to SREL, essentially. Best part is, we don't have to set up a net and wait for them. We just walk right over, piss them off, and grab some of the swarm. Seems pretty doable in the 3 weeks or so we have left. Julian's gone home now, which leaves us on our own, but I think we'll be fine.

We also have a side commitment of collecting fruits, seeds, and bugs from patches to make a catalog of stable isotope signatures, but that's easy enough.

So things are looking up, I've been having fun (but not too much) with the other researchers, I'll be in the Netherlands in less than a month, and ... yeah that's pretty much it.

R.I.P.
U.S.S. Bunting

It's been a while...

I suppose not much has happened, but I figure I should update. Um, netting birds has still been pretty slow, not many blood samples to show for the past couple of weeks. I think we might have about 6 by now, definitely not enough. We would have one more, if that stupid bird from patch B in 52 hadn't wigged out. I swear, he wouldn't bleed! We poked any vein we could find, but could hardly get a drop before the flow stopped. I think we poked him a bit too much, though, because he started closing his eyes. So we busted out the sugar water. We heard on the radio that Julian had come to the patch for his own project, so we called him over to help. He suggested poking veins on the leg, but still no blood from those either. And the bird was looking worse. So Julian proceeded to practically drown him in sugar water, and we put him back in the pillowcase to chill out for a while. It came time to leave the patch, and zombie bird wasn't much better, so Candace and I took turns with him while the other took down nets. Eventually he seemed pretty revived, but he wouldn't flap his wings. Figuring we'd poked him too much, and following Julian's suggestion, we took him back to station and put him in the cage there. (I made it all nice and comfy for him.) We decided he could get the soreness out of his wings overnight and we could release him in the morning... And then he wasn't there in the morning. Most likely Julian took him home, but we never did ask. Maybe the solution to this mystery will appear in a later blog.

Anyway, most other days weren't so exciting. Nest searches still suck, though we're now doing them in the morning once we set Ipods at nets, which makes them suck less. Usually they don't yield much, just old or questionable nests. A couple times, however, they've actually rewarded us with a mommy bunting, so I guess we'll keep doing them. Also, now that we've learned how soon the babies fledge once they've hatched, we know to keep a better eye on them. (We missed our opportunity to collect feathers at one site.)

We've also had another tragic death, but not a bunting. And it wasn't from any negligence on our part. The warbler just hung itself in the net. Got caught in one layer, stuck its head through another layer or two and twisted itself around. We tried to cut the net before it was too late... I called him P. Deaddy (P for pine warbler). Candice liked Deaddy P better. We stuck him in the cooler because maybe a museum would want him or something. Then we left him in the office for Julian to maybe practice taxidermy on...

And that pretty much sums up bird stuff. In other parts of my life, I had a wee bit too much fun at the 4th of July party. Spent Saturday recovering. Wanted to play ultimate on Sunday but there was a crazy storm. There's probably been another Sunday since I last updated, and it was probably a decent game. Though I think I remember getting annoyed at some people for being obnoxious and making bad decisions. Oh well.

As usual I've been talking to Beck almost every day. I'm getting really excited for my trip to the Netherlands! We've made reservations at hotels and started writing out a rough itinerary. Only a month left! It's gonna be the bestest trip everrrrr!