Posts tagged ‘orchids’
Ankarana National Park – Tsingies and Chameleons
Since academics are officially done, the study abroad group and I spent the last week being tourists. We traveled to the north of Madagascar, where we visited the wonderful Ankarana National Park. I saw tons of lovable things: orchids (some in flower!), tsingies (sharp rock formations pictured below), chameleons (some large; some small; and some very, very, very small), leaf-tailed geckos, ferns, and lemurs. Check out the oodles of photos below.
An orchid in fruit:
A tiny chameleon:
A tiny chameleon… on my hand!:
A leaf-tailed gecko:
Part of the tsingy formation:
Some bunny rabbit orchid flowers (bunny rabbit orchid = genus Bulbophyllum):
I had so much fun checking out this National Park. Definitely one of my favorites that we’ve seen! I especially liked seeing the plant communities adapted to grow on the tsingies. The bunny rabbit orchid pictured just above grows epiphytically on a tsingy-adapted tree.
Once the study abroad group dragged me away kicking and screaming from Ankarana, we went to the extremely touristy city of Diego Suarez. I haven’t seen so many white folks since January 25th, when I was still in the States. It was strange. Sadly, I missed out on most aspects of Diego that weren’t delicious food (I missed snorkeling in the Emerald Sea) because I got a high fever and hid away in a hotel room to recover (with the help of a powdered medication called Erythromycine). I ate a hamburger and a banana split to facilitate the recovery process.
By yesterday, I was feeling all better — right in time for the flight from Diego to Tana. The rest of the study abroad students are flying out of Madagascar today… except me! I’m spending the next week CouchSurfing in Tana. I’ll sleep in four different places in total, two nights in each. One of my hosts is a tour guide, another an anthropologist, another a painter, and another a French chef. SO EXCITED! I can’t wait to meet and hang out with these people. Also, I’m happy to have the chance to unwind in Madagascar’s capital before having to tearfully say goodbye to this fantastic country.
Mandena and the Write-Up
Bonjour, bonsoir! I spent this last week being an academic machine. From Monday to Wednesday, I collected orchid data in the littoral forest of Mandena. Since then, I’ve been putting together my data from the three different littoral forest sites to create a write up which is, as of this morning, finished. Hooray!
In the three different sites (Sainte Luce, Petriky, and Mandena), I found a total of 39 different species — a huge jump from 18 species, which is what was reported in the past. More than double! And when you combine these two lists, there winds up to be a total of at least 45 different orchid species in the three sites. This newly places the orchid family (Orchidaceae) in the list of the top five most highly represented vascular plant families found in the three zones.
Along with updating the list of orchid species found in the three zones, I also compiled a list of tree species that commonly serve as hosts for epiphytic orchid species in these zones, and I found that the percentage of terrestrial versus epiphytic orchid species differs between zones. Additionally, certain orchid genera turned out to have more species in some zones than others. These results helped me create a write-up of which I am very proud. I hope all the information I gathered will be of use to QMM as they monitor these littoral forest sites and execute their conservation efforts within them.
Now, please enjoy several pictures of orchids and of other forms of biodiversity!
Me, looking especially nerdy in the swamp in the middle of Mandena:
A fabulous bird:
Cynorkis elata:
Cynorkis fastigiata:
Disperis tripetaloides:
Eulophia macra:
Oeonia volucris:
Sainte Luce and Petriky
I just got back from round two of orchid data collection, which took place in Petriky. Now that I find myself with some free time, I’ll write a little bit about what life has been like over the last couple of weeks in the forests.
I spent my days in the forests navigating through densely packed vegetation and looking for orchids in every spot they might be: on the ground, on rocks, and on other plants. When I found a species I hadn’t seen yet, I recorded its GPS location, its habitat, and the number of individuals. Additionally, anytime I found a species in an especially large concentration, I would set up a 5m x 5m plot to survey it and all other species found in the plot. In this way, I got a list of species found in each forest and an estimate for the maximum possible density of each species in each forest. Using these maximum possible densities, I will be able to do a rough comparison between the forests to see if certain species are more common in one forest than in another.
In Sainte Luce, I found 23 species of orchids. In the literature, only 7 species have been reported there. Then in Petriky, I found 15 species, whereas only 3 species were previously reported there. Woop! Also, I noticed that a significantly higher percent of the species in Petriky are terrestrial than in Sainte Luce. I’m not sure why there’s such a difference. Petriky is overall drier than Sainte Luce, but I don’t imagine that being the reason for a higher number of terrestrial species there… I have quite a write-up ahead of me! And I haven’t even looked at the third forest, Mandena, yet.
Overall, the camping has been a fun experience. I especially enjoyed Sainte Luce. The campsite is well developed and and staffed. There was a covered concrete spot under which we put our tents, which helped us better stay dry inside our tents. There was a full-time cooking staff there put in place by QMM and consisting of two very nice women who cook the most delicious food I’ve eaten in all of Madagascar. Even the rice water was especially tasty. Also, there were flushing toilets!
The weather in Sainte Luce was rainy towards the end, so we wound up having to camp an extra day. The roads to Sainte Luce are already in bad shape, and when it’s rainy, it becomes impossible to travel there. Camping for an extra day wasn’t too bad, though — in fact, that meant three more extra delicious meals.
Petriky was a rougher experience. There was no covered campsite, so we camped out in the open, which meant we got a little bit wet. Even with rainflies, water tends to leak into tents. And it rained a lot, especially at night. Furthermore, there was no cooking staff in place, so we brought all of the food and dishes we would need and cooked for ourselves. I did a lot of dishes. This made me realize how it’s impossible to fully clean dishes… The only thing available with which to clean dishes is the tap water, which is brown and which my advisor said not to drink. It’s impossible to dry the dishes before eating off of them, so we inevitably wind up drinking the tap water. I think this is how it has been in general — I’ve been drinking Malagasy tap water without noticing due to the fact that I am eating off of plates cleaned with it. One cannot escape from the tap water! That explains why all the SIT students suffer from microbes at the beginning of the trip. I must be mostly adjusted by now, because consuming this water at Petriky did me no harm.
The toilet at Petriky was a hole in the ground, which is all good, but less luxurious than flushing toilets for sure. Mosquitoes were rampant. When I got bored one night, I rolled up my pant legs and counted — 18 bites! Also, I got pretty lonely during my time in Petriky. In Sainte Luce, the cooking staff ladies spoke some French, so I was able to communicate with them. Plus, I got along really well with the student, Marco, who went with me to Sainte Luce. In Petriky, however, the only people on site were the guards (who speak zero French and are all middle-aged men) and the two people I went with — a young female student and a middle-aged QMM botanist. These two people spoke French, but they were more content to speak in Malagasy. And when we did speak together in French, it was somehow very clear that we had little in common. I felt really disconnected from the world during those few days, so I was especially happy to get back to Fort Dauphin, where I am now.
The next step is a couple of days in Mandena (which is close to Fort Dauphin, so camping will not be necessary) and then the write up. Come this time next week, I’ll be mostly done with this project — and mostly done with this semester! But until then… I have some serious work to do.
Until next time! Here are some pictures of the orchids I’ve been looking at.
Bulbophyllum elliottii, Sainte Luce
Bulbophyllum cf humblotti, Sainte Luce
Angraecum eburneum var. xerophilum, Petriky
Lissochilus beravensis, Petriky
Post Sainte Luce Check-in
Hi all! I’m strapped on time at the moment, but I just wanted to post and say that everything is fabulous. I had lots of fun camping in Sainte Luce last week. I saw lots of orchid species (more than reported in the literature!) and got an overwhelming amount of data. I have several hours left of data entry, and then multiple hours of IDing, and then multiple hours of analysis… all to be finished before I leave for Forest Number Two (Petriky) on Tuesday. Now I’m off to buy some instant coffee, because I’ll be needing this over the next few weeks if I continue getting this much information.
That being said, I am busybusybusy – but happily so! If I find the chance, I’ll update this entry with what it was like in Sainte Luce, but if I don’t… then until next week!
To Madagascar and India 