Figuring out field work

UFirst thing this morning we headed out to see if any mammals were trapped, and to set up the insect nets. There are two nets being set up, one with a black back drop, and one with white (this is in addition to the colored bowels we set up). The design is such that when the insect flies into the tent, it will try and go up and get caught in the container with soapy water. We leave the tents out all day and come back to collect all the insects that have fallen into the soapy water. 

This gives the researchers an idea about the general biodiversity of the insects here. This data can be used to quantify the health of an ecosystem, and to also look at relationships between the pollinating insects and the flowers that are in the area. 

We use a tea strainer to separate the insects from the water into collecting jars. 

Now the grad students back in Barcelona get to sort out the species of insects we've collected. 

At our field site today we added an additional task, which is to count parts of specific plants. We'd find a specific grass and count the spikes (the part that comes up with the flower), and then count the flower. Think of wheat growing in a field. You know the wheaty stuff on top, well, that is hundreds of individual flowers. 

Some of the spike had 180 flowers... Needless to say, this was't a job that I particularly liked. I am not a sit stiller, so the flower counting was a bit of torture. Much like my experience with paleontology and preferring to hunt for dinosaur tracks, which requires a lot of walking around, compared to sitting at a dig site and picking at bones all day, my favorite job here is looking for the wildlife cameras locations and changing out the SD cards and batteries. Much better than counting parts of grass. 

Last night we had a guest speaker from the municipality of Ordino, one of the 7 Parishes that Andorra is divided into. He gave us an overview of the economy here. This tiny little country of 470 km2 and only 80,000 residents receives 8 million tourists a year! What are people

coming here for? Mostly skiing and shopping, but this proactive little place wants to add to the mix and integrate ecotourism, especially in the Parish of Ordino (which is where I am). The preserved park areas have miles and miles of amazing trails, and right now the parks are free. There is a fine line between wanting to encourage more tourism and preserving the land. 

Extreme sports are extremely popular here - from the Tour de France to the 170km Ultra Trail Run that starts tomorrow evening. 

See if you can click on the video to learn more about Andorra. 

https://youtu.be/POOvmkhlUD4