Look at me go! My fifth post in 3 days. I'm making up for not posting for nearly a month. Can you tell I don't want to study?
This past weekend, as part of my Rainforest Ecosystems class, I went to Paluma Range National Park, a part of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area. We spent the night at Gumburu Environmental Education Center. The purpose of the trip was to familiarize ourselves with what an Australian rainforest looks like, as well as gather data or samples on projects we're running. My project is looking at gregarious flowering following cyclones. As I'm sure all of you are aware of, Cyclone Yasi hit the northern coast of Queensland about two months ago, leaving quite a mess in her wake. Past studies have shown plants tend to flower directly after cyclones, regardless of whether they're in season or not. This is caused by an increase in light and temperature beneath the canopy because of a large defoliation. I'm looking to see if this can be confirmed. While it sounds fancy, all it required me to do was traipse through the rainforest, cutting samples of flowers, and then taking them back to the lab and trying to ID them. Considering I have no plant identification skills, this has proven to be exceedingly tedious. But the traipsing through the rainforest part was fun.
As an introduction to the rainforest, the manager of Gumburu EEC gave us a safety talk, which boiled down to the rainforest is a dangerous place so don't leave the path. He also highlighted some of the rather unpleasant animals we may meet, mainly leeches and ticks. Because of the torrential amount of rain the region has received in the past 5 months (way more than usual, even for the rainforest), ticks were not a problem. Unfortunately, leeches were aplenty. Within five minutes of entering the forest, I was a tasty treat for a tiny leech. Luckily, he (she? it?) was small enough to remove by hand. However, it was sufficient enough to give me the willies. The next day, I had a much larger fella attach himself to me. However, apparently what he made up for in size, he lacked in brainpower, because he attached himself to my sock and not my leg. I was able to get him off with no blood loss. Other people were not so lucky.
But enough with the gross stuff. The rainforest was amazing! Unbelievably green. It was incredible to see how dense the plants grow together. Even with a recent category 5 cyclone, the canopy covered much of the sky. Every plant was determined to get as much light as possible. It rained both days we were there (it's rained every day since December, save for one day, an unprecedented amount), but that just made it more comfortable. In fact, the entire class was cold. Having lived in Townsville for two months, everyone had acclimated to the intense heat and humidity. Thus, when the temperature dropped down to 70 degrees F, people were rushing to put their sweatshirts on, including myself. Pathetic, really. Even though it was still predominantly covered, you could tell a cyclone had come through. Massive trees littered the forest floor. Because vines often wrap themselves around several different trees, when one goes down, a whole bunch get damaged. Some of the devastation was impressive. It was a really cool learning experience seeing what a forest looks like after intense disturbance.
Overall, it was quite an enjoyable weekend. I got to get out of Townsville which was a nice treat. And I got to cool off. And I got to see more shades of green than I had ever seen in one place before. All in all, gorgeous. We even got a chance to see a bird of paradise. It was jet black with some intense blue coloring on the top of its head, its throat, and its wings. Amazing. The birds here are a little different than chickadees and sparrows, I'll say that much.
Pictures to follow!
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