Day 1

I finally made it to Quito and what a beautiful place it is!
I have a few first impressions of things I didn´t expect… T.G.I. Fridays, Dandelions, an amazing view of the mountains from my hotel room and loss of breath from being at an altitude of 10,000 ft., at least I have a few days to acclimate before we start hiking. I was short of breath just walking around my room last nite.

I´ll meet up with the rest of the team this evening, have dinner and head out to the Yanayacu Biological Station tomorrow morning.  Yanayacu is located in the Napo Province near the town of Cosanga, about 3 to 4 hours via dirt roads from Quito.

While at Yanayacu the other volunteers and myself will have several duties: Search for caterpillars, Collect host plants, Collect Material for lab or computer analyses and Maintain experiments.  The scientists have five primary goals with the data collected from the caterpillars: Document diversity of caterpillars and parasitoids in three species rich ecosystems and moisture gradients (Ecuador, Costa Rica and Arizona), Understand how different caterpillars defenses function against different types of natural enemies, Examine chemical defenses in caterpillars and their host plants, Construct models that predict success of biological control based on caterpillar defenses, and finally examine the effects of climate on caterpillar-parasitiods interactions. 

That´s all I have for now and will try to post again soon after we arrive at the research site with some pictures.

Mike

The view from Hotel Quito

Another view from my hotel room

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