Wednesday Update (day 6)

Today the MPA crew awoke at 5:30 am, and ate an early breakfast in preparation for a multi-hour nature hike. Upon arrival to Parque Rincón de la Vieja, which was a good hour and fifteen minutes away from base camp and in an entirely different biome (dry forest), we were met with beautiful trees and butterflies. The crew walked to a sulfuric hot spring and used the mud to exfoliate. Not long after many of us found ourselves washing away the mud because our skin was burning, whoops. A few kilometers later, we walked down to a waterfall and swam in the freezing water. After a hearty picnic, we returned to the base camp where we resumed our projects. 

In my group (we call ourselves the Cacows), we collected data on our preliminary experiment and both of our controls. We, unfortunately, found one colony to be defective (what functional leaf cutter ant colony would refuse to forage leaves?). After dinner, we set up our general experiment. The Cacows are researching the use of decomposing matter on foraging ant colonies, as on the plantation it is used as a natural pesticide. The decomposing matter ferments, creating acetic acid (vinegar) which when foraged changes the pH of the fungus garden and causes the colony to collapse. Therefore colonies learn not to forage it and avoid it. This is our theory that is we'll have to test and see.

Fiona Blank

Photos by Zoe (All from the hike, except for the new puppy on the cacao farm, Aretha Franklin, we had to include her!)