Notes From the Field: Felicity Arengo

Tuesday, September 21 10:05 am

Blogging from Argentina, Felicity Arengo (Associate Director of the Museum’s Center for Biodiversity and Conservation) is counting flamingos. Andean flamingos leave their high-altitude lakes and disperse, among other places, to the cattle lands and soy farms of Argentina’s “pampas,” or fertile lowlands, for winter. Arengo and her colleagues have found numerous wintering sites over the last few years and are working to coordinate efforts to protect these birds from habitat destruction due to roads, mining, and agricultural practices, among other factors.

August 24

Photo courtesy of Felicity Arengo

We’ve now surveyed 14 lakes and will circle back to Melincué to survey the lake there and check on Nancy Cruz and Victor Torres. Both are advanced undergraduate students that are camping in the wetlands to gather data on flamingos for Nancy’s thesis. We stopped by to check in with Sánchez, the caretaker of the ranch along the lake where we’ve set up the students’ camp. He treats us to some mate, an infusion of dry yerba leaves sipped from a shared hollow gourd through a metal straw, while his wife Estela takes a break from ironing clothes to stoke the fireplace as the temperatures have dropped to 50 degrees, still above average.

When we began working at this site 13 years ago, we spoke with many of the landowners in the area to explain the project and garner support, and also to request permission to access sites on their properties. Support from local stakeholders is essential to our goal to conserve the wetlands, the wildlife, and the ecosystem services that support economic development. This expedition has been fruitful in that regard, as we’ve come across several local people with the same interest. A landowner stopped by to chat with us as we surveyed a wetland from the roadside and offered access through his property; a teenager working at the bakery said his youth group would be interested in helping with fieldwork; a beekeeper, concerned for his livelihood, is interested in maintaining traditional economic opportunities that are more ecologically sustainable. Read more »

Florida Student Goes for the Green to Win Young Naturalist Award

9:38 am

2010 Young Naturalist Award winner Stephanie tested the pollution level in a nearby pond, which is frequented by otters. Photo courtesy of Stephanie.

An osprey diving for a fish, a family of otters playing on the banks, a small alligator gliding silently through the water. These are just some of the animals Stephanie, a Florida seventh-grader, saw each morning as she looked out her kitchen window to the pond behind her home.

The pond, which was located next to a golf course, seemed full of life. But Stephanie, who was familiar with the widespread use of fertilizers and pesticides to maintain the courses, wondered just how safe the water, and its animal inhabitants, really were. Was the water runoff from the course polluting the pond? Stephanie decided to investigate, a project that led to her winning essay, Going for Green, in the 2010 Young Naturalist Awards contest.

Before testing the water, Stephanie carried out extensive research to learn about the effects of fertilizer and pesticide runoff. She also interviewed the head groundskeeper for the golf course to learn which fertilizers and pesticides were used to maintain the green.

Stephanie then identified three locations in the pond in which to conduct her testing. She tested each area for dissolved oxygen, nitrates, phosphates, pH, temperature, and turbidity. The analysis of her data showed that the golf course runoff was not affecting the water quality of the pond. (To learn more about Stephanie’s research, and to read about the 12 other 2010 winners, visit the Young Naturalist Awards website.)

Stephanie plans to continue to monitor the pond and the streams that flow in and out of it to see if the results are consistent with her initial investigation.

The Young Naturalist Awards is a nationwide, science-based research contest for students in grades 7 through 12 presented by the Museum. Since 2006, the program has been made possible through the exceptional generosity of Alcoa Foundation as part of its commitment to supporting student achievement in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines.

The deadline for the 2011 Young Naturalist Awards is March 1, 2011.

Notice To All Museum Visitors

Monday, September 20 4:56 pm

The American Museum of Natural History will be closed on Thursday, September 23, to accommodate a special event.

The Museum will resume its normal schedule on Friday, September 24, from 10 am to 5:45 pm.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

Tyrannosaurs Were More Than Carnivores at the Top of the Food Chain

Thursday, September 16 2:31 pm

T. rex teeth on display in the Museum. Credit: D. Finnin

We’ve all heard this story — about 65 million years ago several large-headed, tiny-armed, bipedal predators, like Tyrannosaurus rex and Tarbosaurus, dominated Asia and North America.

But a decade of new fossil discoveries that have more than doubled the number of known tyrannosaur species has changed this tale. Older and smaller tyrannosaurs have made the evolutionary tree of this group richer and more complex. Furthermore, a series of innovative research projects on topics like bone growth and biomechanics have added an enormous amount of information about tyrannosaurs, so much so that the group could now be considered an exemplar for studying many themes in paleontology research. A new paper describing recent research and a new evolutionary tree appears in Science this week.

“We know more about tyrannosaurs than any other group of dinosaurs—even more than some groups of living organisms,” says Stephen Brusatte, a graduate student affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History.

“T. rex is the most iconic of all dinosaurs,” says Mark Norell, curator in the Division of Paleontology at the Museum. “The work on tyrannosaurs underscores how much can be done using modern techniques to understand the biology of fossil organisms. Many of us in the field now look at ourselves as biologists who just happen to work on dinosaurs.”

For more, please check the official press release.

Notes From the Field: Felicity Arengo

11:21 am

Blogging from Argentina, Felicity Arengo (Associate Director of the Museum’s Center for Biodiversity and Conservation) is counting flamingos. Andean flamingos leave their high-altitude lakes and disperse, among other places, to the cattle lands and soy farms of Argentina’s “pampas,” or fertile lowlands, for winter. Arengo and her colleagues have found numerous wintering sites over the last few years and are working to coordinate efforts to protect these birds from habitat destruction due to roads, mining, and agricultural practices, among other factors.

22 August

Photo courtesy of Marcelo Romano

When I tell people I study flamingos, they imagine tropical lagoons with palm trees. I like revealing that flamingos actually live in extreme harsh environments, including the high altitude wetlands amongst some of the highest peaks in South America’s Andes Mountains. And here in the lowland sites, ice and snow are not uncommon during winter fieldwork.

But today is an atypical exception as we shed layers to count flamingos in 80-degree temperatures. Like most scientists, I am concerned about the effects of climate change on these systems, in addition to the more immediate threats they face, and here the challenges are many.

This is the most productive area for Argentina’s cattle and agriculture. Since the early 1800s, Argentina’s rural traditions have been based on extensive cattle grazing. Here cattle feed year round on pastures, producing Argentina’s world famous beef. But the last 10 years have seen some significant changes in land use. The world market for soy and its derived products is driving the conversion of pasture to a planted monoculture. While cattle feed mostly on established introduced grasses, there is also room for native grasslands, especially along the wetlands’ edges. But soy, requiring fertilizers and pesticides, is planted to the water’s edge. Many old family ranches are being sold to investors wanting to profit from the soy boom. We need to be vigilant of how this shift in Argentina’s rural lifestyle and landscape affects these wetlands that are so valuable for productive systems and so important for wildlife.

Photo courtesy of Marcelo Romano

Marcelo opens the satellite image for the area on the computer. The GPS mounted to the dashboard and connected to the computer allows us to find our position on the screen. It shows a checkerboard of different greens and browns depending on whether there is pasture, crops, or tilled earth. The thin lines between squares on the screen are dirt roads. The checkerboard is dotted with dark blue patches that indicate water. We have to navigate between the fields to find access to the wetlands. We haven’t had much luck yet today; several of the wetlands we visited did not have many birds. We measure some habitat variables in these wetlands anyway: water temperature, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, pH. We are trying to determine what makes a wetland attractive to flamingos and to do that we have to also sample those without birds. Read more »