No. 84, November 2015 Wilson Botanical Garden Las Cruces Biological Station Apdo. 73-8257 San Vito, Coto Brus, COSTA RICA Who We Are he Las Cruces Biological insects, and in particular moths and but- sleeping quarters, delicious meals, knowl- Station is one of three field terflies. edgeable and enthusiastic staff, and a well- Tstations owned and operated Las Cruces protects more than 200 maintained network of paths and trails. by the Organization for Tropical Studies hectares of primary forest (home to over The nearest town is San Vito, the (OTS) in Costa Rica. The station was ac- 2,000 native plant species) and ~150 addi- municipal capital of Coto Brus County. quired in 1973 and, along with the Wilson tional hectares that are in various stages of It was founded by Italian immigrants in Botanical Garden, offers natural history forest recovery. The reserve is surrounded the 1950’s and to this day they have a visitors and researchers alike an extraordi- by a mosaic of mixed-use agricultural strong presence in the community. There nary place to visit and conduct research. fields and forest patches, and it is this is even a Dante Alighieri Italian-Costa Far from the noise and bustle of the fragmented setting that makes Las Cruces Rican Community Center provides Italian country’s capital city San José, Las Cruces an ideal place to study the effects of forest language instruction. Indeed, Coto Brus is located in the remote southwestern fragmentation and isolation on animal and is the only county in Costa Rica where corner of the country between Corcovado plant communities. The landscape sur- Italian forms part of the elementary cur- National Park on the Osa Peninsula, and rounding Las Cruces is also ideally suited riculum! the enormous La Amistad International for research on biological corridors and We invite you and your family and Biosphere Reserve (472,000 hectares) that restoration ecology; key fields of research friends to come visit us for an afternoon, spans south-central Costa Rica and west- that are of ever increasing importance. an overnight stay or a week to see and ern Panama. In 1983, UNESCO declared Part of our mission at Las Cruces is to experience firsthand the splendid tropical Las Cruces and the Wilson Botanical continue to purchase land for reforestation diversity of the Las Cruces Biological Sta- Garden part of the Biosphere Reserve due and, in doing so, expand our protected ar- tion and Wilson Botanical Garden. to its incredible diversity and proximity to eas and connect some of the isolated forest La Amistad. fragments around the station. For further For more information please visit The Wilson Botanical Garden, founded information on this campaign please visit Las Cruces website at http://www.ots.cr/ in 1962 by Catherine and Robert Wilson, our website. lascruces or contact us directly by email: is arguably the most important botanical At approximately 1,200 meters eleva- [email protected] or telephone at: +506 garden in Central America and a “must tion (3,900 feet), the prevailing tempera- 2773-4004. Postal mail can be sent to: see” stop on the itineraries of plant lovers, tures at Las Cruces are cooler than one Estación Biológica Las Cruces/Jardín birders, and other natural history groups. might expect. Temperatures range from Botánico Wilson; Apdo. 73-8257; San It is famous for its worldwide collection of 21-26 °C (70-80 °F) during the day and Vito de Coto Brus, Puntarenas; Costa tropical plants that include palms, aroids, 15-21 °C (low 60’s) at night. Mean annual Rica. bromeliads, gingers, marantas, heliconias, rainfall is ~4,000 mm (157 inches)! The Reservations can also be made by and ferns. More than 3,000 exotic species dry season runs from January – March, contacting the OTS office in San José by of plants can be found in the 10-hectare (~ and the rainy season from May – Novem- email [email protected] or 25-acre) garden, including one of the larg- ber. Most visitors and researchers come by telephone +506 2524-0607. est collections of palms in the world. during the dry season. The North American OTS office is There is an incredible diversity of ani- The station is well known for its visitor- located at Duke University, telephone: +1 mals that inhabit the Las Cruces reserve, friendly amenities: comfortable private (919) 684-5774 or email: [email protected]. and the forest fragments in the immedi- ate surrounding area. The most recently updated bird list includes 410 species; The Organization for Tropical Studies is a nonprofit consortium of universities and close to half the number of birds found research institutions in the U.S., Costa Rica, Peru, Mexico, South Africa, and Australia. in all of Costa Rica. There are also over Founded in 1963, OTS is dedicated to providing leadership in education, research 100 species of mammals, of which 60 are and the responsible use of natural resources in the tropics. To this end, OTS offers bats. Some of the more commonly sighted graduate, undergraduate and professional education, facilitates research, participates in mammals include agoutis, white-faced conservation activities, conducts environmental education programs and maintains three capuchin monkeys, kinkajous, olingos, fields stations in Costa Rica: La Selva Biological Station in the Atlantic lowland rain and tayras. Reptiles and amphibians also thrive in this moist, cloud-laden habitat forest; Palo Verde Biological Station in the Pacific deciduous dry forest; and Las Cruces and there is an impressive diversity of Biological Station in the premontane cloud forest near the Panamanian border. 2 Amigos Newsletter Director’s Keys and Notes AMIGOS NEWSLETTER No. 84, November 2015 3 Director’s Keys and Notes 4 What’s New at Las Cruces 6 Research at Las Cruces Biogenic Silica: What is It, and How Might It Be Useful in Showing Hydrological Connectivity? 8 Butterfly Abundance and Species Richness in Regeneration Plots 10 GIS Corner 11 Flora and Fauna Helping the Heliconias Bird Songs! A drone taking off for a quick forest survey. Photo Jonathan Dandois. 12 Roberto Burle Marx and The Wilson Botanical Garden Zak Zahawi / [email protected] 13 De La Comunidad few Amigos issues back (May funded by the National Science Foundation, The Social Network, a Vital 2013) we printed a fantastic with some support from other agencies Component of Environmental A aerial collage of the Las and private donors. As with all large- Education Cruces Biological Station as taken from an scale and long-term projects, however, it Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) or drone. is costly to keep running and manage not 14 Our Donors The UAV was equipped with a simple only the upkeep and access to sites, but Of Gail, Harry, and Blogs! point and shoot camera and programmed also all data collection to evaluate how the to continuously take photographs as it project is doing. One major goal of the flew along a pre-programed route using its study is to evaluate the success of recovery built-in GPS to guide it. The images were Front Cover: The diatom (Luticol under different restoration strategies. This then stitched together to create a very nice sp.), which was collected during a assessment includes collecting data on tree collage of the station and the immediate storm event at a Las Cruces forest structural metrics such as canopy height, surrounding area. site (for details see full article on canopy closure, above-ground biomass This image though was actually just Biogenic Silica). Photo Sarah (an important proxy of how much Carbon part of a test flight. In reality what the Spaulding each plot has fixed), among others. On the University of Maryland researchers came ground it is somewhat tedious and slow and to do was fly these drones over the long- Back Cover: Part of the group skilled technicians are needed to collect the term restoration plots that Karen Holl of the Florida Bebidas company data. Accordingly, we decided to evaluate (University of California-Santa Cruz) and who participated in the volunteer a novel monitoring strategy using drones I established a decade ago in and around activities at Las Cruces in July and which promised to potentially reduce the Las Cruces. The restoration project, also August. Photo Rodolfo Quirós. cost of monitoring considerably (both known as “Proyecto Islas”, was established monetarily speaking as well as in terms of to evaluate the impact of different Editorial Committee: Alison time investment). restoration strategies on forest recovery. It Olivieri, Rodolfo Quirós, Emilce The results of this collaborative project is now in its 11th year and has been largely Ramírez, Ariadna Sánchez, Zak were quite striking. Using the images Zahawi. Amigos Newsletter 3 What’s New at Las Cruces? collected from the drones, and open source software and algorithms to process Rodolfo Quirós and Zak Zahawi / [email protected]; [email protected] them, we were able to create 3-D point clouds that represent the vegetation on the ground and interpret this information Corporate Volunteering at Las Cruces to derive remotely generated metrics for Over a few days in July and August a total of 75 collaborators forest structure. However, there remained from the Ciudad Neily section of the Florida Bebidas Company, an additional step. This technique, or dedicated a combined 450 hours of their time to work in the Botanical “Ecosynth” methodology, had to be Garden and in the forest. They cleaned up ditches and trails, removed tested against field-based measures to leaf litter to be used as natural fertilizer in the garden, relocated fallen determine if the results generated were trees branches and big leaves, and removed some of the exotic plants representative of what is found on the from the forest that are growing along the Rio Java trail.