I plan for this blog had been to post from the field with continuation afterwards on mangrove research. This plan was foiled by the lack of internet access, save at very slow speeds. How slow? I would regularly take me 30 minutes to check my email with 10 messages. Overall my first field trip to Galapagos was a success. I learned a substantial amount about mangroves in the Galapagos, made observations about patterns of species zonation and growth, met with our collaborators at the Charles Darwin Station and collected numerous ground truthing points to be used in the coming year to generate preliminary relationships between remote sensing and the ground. Some interesting things I noted in the field - 1) one of our field sites is a lagoon covered under the RAMSAR convention for wetland protection. 2) The mangroves really host a diverse range of fauna, terrestrial and marine and are an crucial nursery habitat - I observed schools of small fish and shrimp larva in the mangrove swamps out of the reach of predatory birds and other animals. 3) There is an invasive mangrove species in the Galapagos - this information comes to me from one of the local guides who learned it during his last training from the National Park but I have not been able to confirm it (scientists at the Charles Darwin Station seemed unaware of it).
Unfortunately I was unable to really explore the two other large Islands of Santa Cruz and San Cristobal (I never made it to the latter) because of illness. Luckily I recovered quickly and didn´t require medical attention, but had a few very miserable days which I spent reading in the shade at the hotel.
I am in Quito now, going to the Universidad de San Francisco Quito to meet by former labmate and current collaborator on this project. The altitude and weather have been a big change from Galapagos.
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