Not all the diversity of a forest is easy to see. Today I want to show you some of the smaller and more elusive creatures we’ve found over the last few weeks in El Yunque. First, here’s one of the forest’s more common but hard-to-see species. This is the coquí frog, Eleutherodactylus coqui. Its loud…

I’d like to introduce you to a very distinctive tree, straight out of Dr. Seuss. In the Puerto Rican rainforest here, you will often see Cecropia schreberiana (Urticaceae) with its long spindly branches and ringed white trunk spiraling up to the highest points of the canopy. It reminds me of a long metal hose with…

A box full of fresh vegetables arrived at the field station today, courtesy of Georges and his new Puerto Rican community supported agriculture (CSA) group, AGROexpress. Yautilla, starfruit, tomatoes… finding these roots and fruits at my porch was a distinct pleasure. The food I (and probably you) eat is almost entirely grown on a farm,…

When an ecologist talks about fieldwork, what do they really mean? I’ll share a few scenes from our forest dynamics project here in Puerto Rico for you, so you can see what a full day of work looks like. We stay at a small field station in the rainforest, and wake up early to plan…