What I learned in Panama

What I learned in Panama:

A brief list of my favorite acquired knowledge since January 9, 2013

in no particular order

Culture:

• Much, much more Spanish
• To understand spoken Spanish
• Confidence to express myself in Spanish
• Men treat women differently here than where I'm from
• Panamanian men 40+ years old have a thing for young, foreign women
• How to cheer on a sports team in Latin America (very useful)
• If you need anything from anyone in Panama, expect it to take two weeks longer than you think it should take
• How to drive in Latin America
• Pura vida=everything

Science:

• How to get into grad school
• I am extremely, extremely excited to be working in marine science (before I was just very excited)
• I really like studying marine invertebrates, and I think I will for my PhD
• I have SO much more to learn about marine invertebrates and inter- and subtidal ecology
• How many marine invertebrates are affected by tidal cycles
• The Friday Harbor Labs are exceptionally well known and I should take summer courses there
• The statistical program R!
• I need to stay updated on the science of my field
• To identify dangers in marine field work and what to do if you get hurt
• To do field work in a variety of tropical environemnts

Travel:

• Long sleeves are better than sunscreen
• I would value living in one geographical location for more than 3-4 months at a time
• Don't store electronics in communal fridges

Life:

• To get by day after day not knowing what I'll be doing until five minutes before it happens
• To have an extremely flexible schedule
• How to have goals but not expectations (still working on this one)
• My favorite party beverages
• I still wish I liked beer
• It doesn't matter how hot it is outside--you're going to be cold when you go into any building thanks to air conditioning 
• To be okay with constantly sweating
• That Seco is a gringo-killer (thankfully I learned this the easy way)
• The ups and downs of dating people from a different culture (also learned this the easy way)
• To SCUBA dive!!!

Lo que aprendí en Panamá: 

Una breve lista de mis favoritos conocimientos nuevamente adquiridos desde 9 enero 2013

ordenados al azar

Cultura:

• Muchísimo más español
• Aprender español hablado
• La confianza de espresarme en español
• Hombres tratan a mujeres diferente aquí que de donde soy
• A hombres panameños que tienen  40 años o más les gustan mujeres jovenes y extranjeras
• Animar un equipo de deportes en America Latina (extremademente útil)
• Si pides algun servicio en Panamá (ejm. ayuda con una conección de internet) calcula que hay dos semanas más de que pensabas para hacerlo
• Manejar en America Latina
• Pura vida=todo

Ciencia:

• Ingresarse en un programa de estudios de posgrado
• Estoy muy, muy, MUY emocionada estudiar ciencia marina (antes sólo estaba muy emocionada)
• Me gusta estudiar invertebrados marinos y creo que los voy a estudiar para mi doctorado
• Hay un MONTON de aprender de invertebrados marinos y la ecología inter- y submareal
• Cómo los invertebrados marinos son afectados por los ciclos de mareas (y la luna)
• Los laboratories de Friday Harbor son excepcionalmente bien conocidos y debo sacar cursos allá durante los veranos 
• ¡El programa estadística R!
• Tengo que mantenarme informada de las noticias en mi campo de ciencia 
• Identificar riesgos marinos y qué hacer si estás dañado 
• Trabajar en el campo en una variedad de ambientes tropicales

Viaje:

• Mangas largas son mejoras que bloqueador
• Preferiría vivir en un lugar geográfio por más que 3-4 meses a la vez
• No guardes dispotivos electrónicos en refris comunitarias

Vida:

• Vivir cada día sin saber que vas a hacer hasta que cinco minutes antes de que ocurre
• Tener un horario extremadamente flexible
• Tener metas sin expectaciones (todavía aprendiendo esto)
• Mis bebidas favoritas para las fiestas
• Todavía espero que me guste la cerveza
• No importa qué calor hay afuera--siempre vas a tener frío al entrar cualquier edificio gracias al aire acondicionado
• Estar cómoda sudando constantamente
• Seco mata a gringos (suertamente aprendí esto sin haber morir)
• Los altos y bajos de una relación con una persona de otra cultura (aprendí esto sin haberlo hecho también)
• BUCEAR!!!

Electric Fish in Soberania

Obviously I can't get enough field work, because the day after the Punta Culebra-egg mass-canoe experiment I went with Cassie to help our friend Alex collect electric fish in a stream. Alex is a
Master's student at McGill University (Montreal, Quebec, Canada) and is studying the divergence in electric signals across populations of knife fish. He needed to collect 40 or so Brachyhypopomus occidentalis from a shallow stream and then record their signals.

We drove to Parque Nacional Soberania, which is about 45 minutes north of Panama City. It's famous for bird-watching  Once we got to the park, we took the most ridiculous roads and I thought the car was going to fall apart. Every ten or twenty seconds we'd hit a hole or bump that made us fly a few inches up from our seats. It took significant physical effort to stay upright. Along this route we also saw one of Alex's favorite flowers, "the hot lips, colloquially referred to as "labios de Chomba," which roughly translates to "lips of black women." According to Rigo, who works in the STRI freshwater fish collection and was driving the truck, Chomba is a local name for African women.

Labios de Chomba flower. Image taken from Google images.

The collection process was really cool. We splashed through ankle-to-thigh-deep, cool and extremely refreshing water throwing down a rod with electrodes attached to either end. When in the water, the signals from the fish are conducted through the electrodes to an amplifier which converts the energy to audible sound. The sound came out as intermittent pulses which were of a lower pitch for larger fish. When we heard some pulses, we'd wave the rod around just under the surface, listening for where it was the loudest to pinpoint the location of the fish. The fish don't tend to swim away when we do this, so it is easy to find them this way. To catch them we'd use a large net to scoop up the water and top layer of substrate, then check to see what we got. I wish I had pictures, but no one brought a camera!

After about an hour of this, we caught about 30 fish and decided it was time for lunch. We put away some field equipment while Alex prepared what he brought for us, which was the epitome of field food: tortillas, re-fried beans served out of the can, a red pepper sliced with a swiss army knife, a pouch of tomato sauce, and some shredded cheese. I liked it, but it was not so appealing to Rigo, who nearly preferred hunger to these "tacos de Alex."

We finished eating and relaxed while Alex prepared the electric recording apparatus. Cassie and I tried to help, but apparently we were inconceivably sleep-deprived because after about 20 minutes we fell asleep on a bed of jagged rocks and slept for nearly an hour. When we awoke, Alex was still going so we helped him finish. Basically we stuck each fish inside a tube in a cooler of water. At each end of the cooler were wires which would record the fishes' constant electric signals. As Alex tallied up the fish, he taught us his efficient way of tallying, which utilizes dots and boxes instead of just lines.

This image shows how to count from 1 to 10. I think it is much more 

organized and easier to read than the traditional tallying method.

Once we finished recording and tallying, we headed out. It was only the late afternoon, but by now Alex was so tired he was "fishing" the whole way home in the car--by "fishing," or "pescando," as Rigo says, I mean his head was bobbing in and out of sleep as a bobber on a popular fishing line. I'm really glad we got to help him, and I hope the data we got helps with his project!

Experimento en el Mar

This year I spent Easter at the beach!

Working at the beach, that is. We wanted to know more precisely what time the moon snail egg masses hatch. We figure they can only hatch when they are covered in water at high tide. So we weighted down ten egg masses and stuck them in the intertidal. Then every hour for six hours around the time of each diurnal high tide (twelve hours a day total) we went out in the canoe, pulled up the weighted eggs and checked to see if they hatched.

So, starting on Saturday at about 3 pm to Tuesday morning, we lived at the lab. During the high tide we'd ride our bikes over to the beach (5 min ride), check in with the guard who manned the gate at the marine museum and then jump in the boat. The high tides, luckily, were at about 6 am and 6 pm each day, so we didn't have to change our sleep pattern too much. We'd check roughly at 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 am, then again at those hours in the pm. It was sort of annoying to go back to the lab for only 30-45 minutes before having to leave again, but we got used to it.

We had a couple interesting encounters with animals while doing this experiment. The first night when we went out after dark we almost ran into an armadillo.

Armadillo at Punta Culebra beach.

Then, when we went out on the sand, I noticed there were round stones all over the beach. Further inspection revealed that they were hermit crabs. There were hundreds of them running in all directions, chasing each other, fighting, feeding, and whatever else hermit crabs do. I thought it was absolutely adorable and I spent quite a bit of time photographing and filming them.

I love this picture. It's like it's dancing in the spotlight!

More hermit crabs, fighting for room in an empty coconut.

Then the next day we found an intruder by my bike! There was a large iguana hanging out around the back of the lab.

Now that we are done with this experiment we need to look at the times things hatched and try to figure out what it means!