First two days: Introduction to Mariana Islands and selecting projects

Our off-island participants arrived on Saipan Monday, May 21st, and got settled into their hotel. We met up on Tuesday morning at Northern Marianas College, and Haldre gave an introduction to the Mariana Islands. After lunch, we headed to the limestone karst forest at Forbidden Island Conservation Area to practice the bread and butter skill of every field ecologist: counting things along a transect or in a plot.

Instructor, Dr. Ross Miller from University of Guam, with participants, Eugene Eperiam and Roseo Marquez.

Participants began to brainstorm research questions while in the jungle, inspired by their previous experience, observations, and course lectures. 

The next day, several researchers in the Marianas posed some questions they thought would be interesting to research. After all of this brainstorming, participants and instructors were given slips of papers to write their questions down. We grouped the questions by topic (see white board photo below), then participants chose their top three topics of interest. The instructors then selected groups, and we ended up with 4 groups: the bird-insect-flame tree group, the snail group, the vine group, and the acacia group.

Project Birds, Insects, and Flame Trees: Alisha Gill

My name is Alisha and these are my partners Tricia and Levani. Our project is comparing the insect and bird communities associated with flame trees on Saipan and Guam. Flame trees are abundant on Guam and Saipan and are Saipan’s national tree. Interestingly, these trees were introduced to the islands from Madagascar where they are listed as an endangered species.

Alisha Gill is a Master's student at the Marine Lab at the University of Guam.

Island Forest Ecology field course

On Monday, May 21st, we kicked off the third round of the Island Forest Ecology field course, funded by the US Forest Service, and run by Dr. Ross Miller from University of Guam, Dr. Haldre Rogers from Iowa State University, with assistance from Dr. Evan Fricke and Ann Marie Gawel from Iowa State University, as well as a host of guest lecturers.

We have 15 participants, coming from Northern Marianas College on Saipan, University of Guam, Guam Forestry, Micronesia Conservation Trust, Yap Forestry, Chuuk Forestry, Pohnpei Forestry, Kosrae Forestry, and Marshall Islands Forestry. Each participant will introduce his/herself in a post over the next week.

In this course, the participants will learn about the ecology of Pacific Island forests, and develop small group projects that compare some aspect of ecology on Saipan and Guam. They will pose a question, develop a hypothesis and methods to test the hypothesis, collect data, analyze data, and produce a final paper and presentation. Our first week is on Saipan, and the next week and a half are on Guam. Stay tuned for updates!

Insect Seed Predation Project Completed!

Data collection for the insect seed predation project has come to an end! Overall 5911 insect and parasitoids have emerged from the seeds and fruit that were collected on Guam and Saipan. The specimens are being sorted for the University of Guam's insect collection and can be found online on Symbiota Collections of Arthropods Network (http://scan-bugs.org/portal/index.php). This exciting work is filling an important gap in our knowledge of Guam and Saipan's seed predator communities. Stay tuned for more information as we begin to analyze the data.

EBL has a new crew member: postdoc Ryszard Oleksy!

The EBL team has a new member on the crew! Ryszard Oleksy is a postdoc. He finished his PhD in the UK working on movement pattern and seed dispersal by large fruit bats in Madagascar. He continued his work in Mauritius which lead to the establishment of a local NGO, Ecosystem Restoration Alliance Indian Ocean, focused on bat ecology and forest restoration. Currently he is joining the EBL lab to work with Mariana fruit bats.

EBL Undergrad Alex Karnish Presented at the Iowa State Capitol regarding Seed Dispersal!

EBL undergrad Alex Karnish presented a poster to state representatives at the Iowa State Capitol titled: Does Seed Dispersal Help Maintain Plant Populations?

Congrats Meg!

Congrats to EBL intern Meg Kargul for getting the prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, which she will be taking with her as she starts a PhD at the University of California at Riverside!

EBL in New Scientist!

EBL's chili pepper paper was featured in New Scientist!

EBL in Nature Communications!

EBL's paper "Effects of an invasive predator cascade to plants via mutualism disruption" was featured in a Nature Communications collection on "Forests in the Anthropocene."

Congratulations to EBL Graduate Student Ann Marie Gawel

Congratulations to EBL graduate student Ann Marie Gawel for being selected by ESA as one of the Katherine S. McCarter Graduate Student Policy Award recipients.

https://www.esa.org/esablog/ecology-in-the-news/2018-graduate-student-policy-award-recipients/