Academic News

Over the last two weeks the students have been sampling plant functional traits in several rainforest types. First, they braved stinging trees, wait-a-whiles, and scrub itch to sample drought and cyclone traits in the critically endangered Mabi

Green-eyed tree frog. Photo by Michel Ohmer.

Forests. Tree trunks had wood cores taken and a team of tree doctors (with imaginative names for their equipment) swung into action to patch up the holes and secure the precious samples. Branches were sampled for leaf and stem traits using our unwieldy pole pruner or brought to Earth with well-aimed slingshots by a local botanist to send sinker and line over the desired branch. After an arvo (afternoon) spent determining frost damage to rainforest seedlings, the group headed to 'heaven,' the dry rainforests of Undara Volvcanic National Park, so named because they lack stinging trees etc. Hard work was rewarded with a lava tube tour and a sighting of kangaroo and joey. Then it was back to the lab for processing and analyses, from which drought and cyclone response of trees was predicted and frost resistance was explained by plant wood density. Just another couple of weeks in the office... gosh, life is tough! Dr. Tim Curran, Resident Lecturer in Tropical Forest Management

Student Reflections

Oh, the Daintree, what can I say about this national park? It will resonate in my dreams for years to come; the most

Summer II student group.

amazing beaches that I have ever had the pleasure of setting foot on. Just a mile's drive from our hostel, Crocodylus, which was a funky little place tucked right into the rainforest, was where the coral sea meets this rolling land of rainforest, forming huge rock out-crops, and leaving flat, soft white beaches of sand, dispersed with coral from the Great Barrier Reef. I am so in love with the Daintree, I think my fellow students will agree with me, it is a place that we will not soon forget.

While there, we visited the Bat House Conservation Center on Cape Tribulation. They have a similar program to SFS, but it is more volunteer-based than academic. After having a tour of their center and their forests at various phases of regeneration, we got to meet Sunshine, a rescued flying fox, who jovially crawled across every member of the group (that's not something you get to do ever day)! Logan Ebbets, University of Vermont

One of the many skills that the students at SFS Australia have been taught is how to use a radio transmitter on bats. To do this we first needed to catch a bat, which is usually easier said than done! In order to catch our furry flying friends we used a harp trap. When it was my group's turn to go, we practiced finding “Betty the bat” on the transmitter. Each of us had a turn using the radio to find which tree Betty and her friends were roosting in. Later that evening we set up the harp trap and then went on our way to go spotlighting. Our first night we had no luck but that quickly changed on the second night. As we approached the harp trap we were all shocked to see that we had caught not one but two bats! After our excitement wore off we realized that one of the bats we caught already had a transmitter on it! I guess Betty missed us so much that she decided to get caught again but at least she brought us one of her friends, Stellaluna. We then took both bats back to the van to record their data and prepared Stella for her transmitter fitting. We all gathered around as our professor Jess measured, shaved, and then placed the transmitter on Stella's back. After some honey water, Betty and Stellaluna were on their way to continue their girl's night out! Sarah Martinez, University of Illinois at Chicago

From stalking Wallabies at our campsite in Undara, to spotlighting for Lumholtz tree kangaroos, ‘brushies' (brush-tailed

BJ examining a frog caught in a funnel trap. Photo by Michel Ohmer.

possums), and leaf-tailed geckos in endangered Mabi rainforest fragments, to catching microbats and skinks and the bizarre velvet walking worm in harp and funnel traps, respectively, my excitement for our next rare meeting with the animal kingdom only increases with each passing day.

I wish that everyone could experience what we have in the Wet Tropics of Australia, but in an effort to share just a small piece of it, I will leave you with a moment of clarity. Last night I had the chance to do a stream transect in Daintree National Park with Amanda, the center director, and her husband and herpetologist, Alistair Freeman. Unsure of how

Michel holding a rehabilitated specktacled flying fox.

successful we would be, we headed out with secret hopes of finding stream-dwelling frogs, knowing many species once familiar are now rarely seen or heard in these areas. To our surprise, we not only found two more widespread species, but also the declining common mist frog (its name now quite ironic). These tiny amphibians are indicators of the changes our Earth is experiencing, and holding one is my hand only solidified my understanding of our responsibility towards their preservation. Coming back from the rainforest that night, I couldn't imagine a world without them. The intricacy that surrounds us is overwhelming; we can't allow ourselves to be oblivious to the great impact we have, both destructive and beneficial, in shaping its existence. Michel Ohmer, Cornell University

Previous Page    Back to Australia News Archives 2007    Next Page