Location Update

Fig Trackers report safe at 10:05 AM CDT.


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Location Update

Fig trackers report safe at 3:20 PM CDT.


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Two videos

I wanted to add a couple videos in addition to the pictures from the previous post. These two videos show the view from our microscope of a pollinating foundress. We were taking measurements of female-phase fruits (as opposed to male-phase fruits, which we've spent the majority of our time collecting). Fruits are in female-phase when new foundress pollinators arrive and start to oviposit into the ovules within the syconia. Usually we open these syconia up, and the foundresses are dead. But in a few of the syconia we opened earlier, the foundresses awoke and started doing their thing. It's quite amazing; their bodies are torn apart after squeezing through the ostiole (a small hole) of the syconia. Despite this, they continue to actively pollinate and oviposit. I had never seen this behavior in action before. The small yellow ovipositor is actually pulled down from the black sheath during oviposition. You can almost see it hanging down from her abdomen in the first video.

Pictures from up North

We're currently in Guerrero Negro and processing fig syconia. I hope to have a bit more time to update later, but here are some pictures from the past few days with captions.

We ran into many goats on the way up to the last site.


There were about a dozen burros on the road up as well.

Some of the goats don't do so well up here.

Amanda seemed to enjoy the hike.

Most of the flora from the northern sites look like something from a Dr. Suess book.



We were quite high up.


And the sun was pretty nasty.

But view was very nice.

Of course, sampling was limited to the branches on which Amanda would allow me to climb. All of those below are fig roots.


We currently have spotty Internet access, but we're doing well on the Pacific side of the peninsula. We should have one more day of processing before heading to the next site; we'll make a day trip a couple hours north, then head back.

Location Update

Fig trackers report safe at 12:45 PM CDT.


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Paintings thusfar

Well, we've seen the "science" section, but I've been neglecting to post the couple paintings I did while in Baja! I've only got two now (we've been SO busy!)... Here they are!

Here's a 1 1/2 hour study of the view off of a bench on a seaside street in Loreto.

The sunset off of a terrace in our hotel complex... It's a bunch of houses - I'll definitely get pictures of this place before before we go! I wish I could have gotten the layers of the mountains a bit more clear - they're SO awesome.. The atmosphere was so colorful!

Anyway, we're off to site 112, and if we have time, 113. Lots of hiking today, it seems, but it's going to be through a wash, which should make it a little easier to get through. :)


Hooray! I hope I can paint again either today or tomorrow.

Update with Pictures!

It gets awfully pretty around the water, especially after you've seen nothing but rocks and sand for days.

 

We didn't find any figs at site 155, but we did find 5 previously unmarked fig trees, and we also had an opportunity to try out our fancy new walkies. It's been a little flustering the past few days, looking for hours to find trees only to find that they either don't have fruit or are strictly guarded by rather vicious-looking dogs... 

                                                                                  Brad has a zen-like focus when he's processing. I love the way he furrows his brow like that..

More captions to come if we get free time!

Alive and Well

We've been having a great time! We're going to Mulejé tonight, and if we have internet, I'll empty out my camera and post some pictures! :)

It's been going alright, although our endeavors on the third site have been fruitless thusfar. Heh... fruitless...

We've got backup plans that we're going to today. Cross your fingers for us!

Location Update

Fig trackers report safe at 4:10 PM CDT.


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Location Update

Fig trackers report safe at 12:40 PM CDT.


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More pictures..

Hey guys - not sure when we're going to have internet next (maybe tonight, maybe a week or two from now...) Here are some pictures in the meantime.

Location Update

Fig trackers report safe at 3:30 PM CDT.


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PROCESSING.

Well guys, here's what we've been doing the past few days.. So we've got all these fruits that we've collected..

They don't all have the black specs (those are buggies. Gross, right?), we just decided to only do a few in that bag (we have more than we had anticipated). Anyway, we have those fruits, and then we rear the buggies out (I explained that in the earlier post)... We slice them in half (or almost in half) and we throw toothpicks in them.




When they're done, and after all the buggies are reared out, the canisters look like this up close...

Not very appetizing, I know. Anyway, Brad takes the canisters, makes sure all the buggies are off of the underside of the lid (tap tap tap tap until they're all on the bottom) and sprays them with ethanol. Poor little things are in fig wasp heaven within a matter of seconds. I hope Fig Wasp St. Peter gently explains to them that it was all done in the name of Science.

Anyway, once the bugs are all doused and "taken care of" (in an Al Pacino way), Brad removes the fig for his job, where he counts the foundresses (Brad's layman's definition of foundresses: female pollinators that have successfully arrived, oviposited, and made it into the ovules of the syconia. They're the ones that pass their genes on. All foundresses are pollinators, but not all pollinators are lucky enough to become foundresses.), and gets the seeds spread out enough to photograph.

Meanwhile, he hands me this fruity little number...

Yup, that's about 200 waspy corpses. It's my job to get them out of the larger canisters, label them, and get them into smaller vials with an eyedropper. It's a sad story, but it's for science.

Then I sit around a bit, usually trying to work ahead a little in the labeling process.

Once Brad's done working, he gives me the remaining seeds after his foundress count (and after he scrapes the seeds off of the meat of the fruit, which looks to be a rather nasty and flustering job), I take a picture of all the seeds, and...







And I put them into a labeled envelope, ready for loggin'.

It's a LONG process, considering we've got about 100 fruits per site. We've done 68 so far. Phew! We're hoping to be done by the end of the day so we can go back to the sites and check the traps. I'll get pictures of them, too!

Good day. I had meat today out of convenience and it isn't as tasty as I remembered it. My tummy hurts a little, so I'll probably mostly avoid it in the future. Remind me if I'm considering it around you.

Still at the Lorimar in La Paz. ¡Hurra por el aire acondicionado!

A few pictures...

Here are some pictures from our trip! :)


This is one of the many, many roads we've traveled on our way to the sites!


 The trees are SO cool.. Most of the trees around here don't have leaves, but the fig trees have really healthy looking leaves that leak weird sticky white stuff when you break them off. The fruits are like that too, so the picking process gets a little messy sometimes! The neat tangly stuff in the branches are adventitious roots - they grow from the trunk of the tree and find their way to the ground. Neat, right?



This is the collection of vials after our first successful day of collecting. We have the squishy fruits, and then we slice them with a knife and stick a toothpick in them, then throw them in the canisters. The bugs come crawling out after they see the light coming in, and our first step is complete. The whole process is called "rearing". Gross, but interesting.

Here's Brad doing science. Isn't he dreamy? We're taking stock of the number of fruits that are on the tree (a good estimate, at least.. It's tricky to get a good count of all of it!). Also, that stuff behind him? yeah, we climbed through that. Booyah.
Neat branches... All of the plants here are very interesting. Most of them are pointy, but this particular one was rubbery and easy to pass by. These plants are my favorites (aside from the fig trees which blow everything else out of the water on a scale of coolness.

Fig trees have AWESOME roots. They grow right into the rock and take claim of the area. The trees themselves are some of the very few things that provide shade, too, so it's a relief to find a good, healthy tree for LOTS of reasons!


It's been a great trip. Adam took this picture. The stick I'm holding is what we're using to get the figs out of the higher branches. Brad sometimes has wanted to climb up high to get them, but I'll be having none of that on my watch. I think my restriction is going to get me a special sentence or two in his dissertation. :)


We've been having a grand time, and the food is AMAZING! We're going to try to get some pictures of it tonight. There are some incredible places around here. We're trying a new tequila every night so we can be total snobs when we get back. Hehe!

It's been a blast. We'll update again really soon!

Second Site

Sooooo,

after a lot of driving, we came upon our second site... And had much better luck finding trees...


The problem was that most of the fruits were in pre-female phase (not ready for wasps), so the fruits weren't ready for harvesting. Conveniently, we'll be here for another 40 days, so we'll be back there again.

More pictures and stories about our adventures tomorrow - I think it might be time for supper!

We're in La Paz right now, and we will be here for a few days at Lorimar. We need to process the figs we've collected...


..and man, we've collected a TON of figs.

¡Los datos son caliente, pero la tierra es MAS caliente!

Hi everyone!! A huge shout out to Reed for alerting everyone of our safety! I can't even begin to tell you what we've done in the last three days.. It's been AMAZING!

They have beautiful flowers here, but it's awfully warm. The first day, we didn't do too much.. After we got John's vehicle (Brad's adviser keeps a 4-runner down here for his frequent trips),
we checked in to the Hotel Carolina in San Jose del Cabo, grabbed some food (OH, the food here is SO good!), and called it a night. While it was REALLY hot, the hotel room had air conditioning (they all do, thank goodness!)

The next day was MUCH more intense! We hit the first site (site 29/31 in San Jose del Cabo) early the next morning.. And Holy COW!


We had a lot of hiking ahead of us! It was kind of silly... There were just a few cattle paths to follow, but most of it was just digging through pointy bushes and cacti, to get aaaalllll the way up to the top of this enormous montaña!
At one point, I did see a rattlesnake, but it was just chilling out under the rocks.. I wasn't afraid of the situation, other than having to find another way around to where my companions were... It was really a thrill to get that far, but it was a major bummer, because we couldn't find the fig trees, and I... well, I suppose I wasn't as prepared as I should have been, because I started overheating, I think. I was drinking water, but apparently it wasn't enough, because I started getting dizzy and kind of lost my perspicacity and awareness for a while. At one point I dropped my water bottle and didn't even notice. Brad kept a really close eye on me, though, and after a ton of water and a nice break in the shade, I felt much better. I think there wouldn't have been a problem at all if it weren't so crazy hot! The vultures circling us weren't particularly encouraging either.


It was really neat, though.. Brad and Adam knew what they were getting into, and the walk back to the car was just fine. All downhill. When we got back, I downed a good 2 litres of water!! :)






After that, we drove.


OH how we drove.



The roads can actually be REALLY intimidating around here... No guardrails around turns that are a foot or two away from huge cliffs, and sand... Lots of sand. Brad's a fantastic driver, and I've never been afraid, but I certainly would be if I were driving!!