As part of their assessment the students carry out a  group research project and are taught tropical plant and animal identification during their stay.

Project areas:

• Studies of hummingbird behaviour and cognition; floral morphology, nectar and pollinator interactions. Studies of mammal diversity and behaviour using camera trap data.
• Studies of bird distributions using observation based data.
• Studies of invertebrate ecology, behaviour and cognition.
• Dung beetle, moth and butterfly diversity projects.
• Studies of frog diversity and forest fragmentation, comparing the biodiversity of frogs across different forest habitats.
• Microbial ecology including antimicrobial strategies of plants: studies of microbial interactions with plants and animals. Here is a link to Beth Clarkson’s paper!
• Plant ecology – studies of plant diversity; bromeliad water tanks and anchorage studies.
• Bioacoustics – analysis of animal sound recordings eg. birds, frogs, bats and bush-crickets. Charlie Woodrow’s paper!

Setting up the entomology experiments

Transects – deep in the forest