I have been devastatingly poor at updating this blog about my time in Panama City. This is my first full-length post about my time in the molecular lab, largely because most days have consisted of pretty much what you think of when you envision a molecular lab. Although, I do work on another island! This one just happens to be connected to the rest of the city via a road.

I commute every morning between 7-8 am to Naos Island on the Amador Causeway from Cerro Ancon, the neighborhood that I live in. The Naos Molecular Lab used to be owned by the U.S. military and was used to protect the canal. As such, there are still remnants (like an old bomb shelter I think) next to the aquarium tanks outside.

For the past couple of weeks, I have been taking my water filters, cutting them up, and extracting them for DNA. Ironically, the less control I have over sterilization and contamination between samples, the less stressed out I am about it. In the field while filtering water on a boat, there was no way I could’ve maintained a perfectly sterile environment, so there was no point in stressing out unnecessarily about it. However in the molecular lab, contamination is something that can be corrected for with intense meticulousness. Because of this, I can feel myself going crazy over whether or not a surface is sterile, because it looks the same dirty or DNA-free. This is because my samples wouldn’t just be contaminated with other Caribbean marine organisms (like they would in the field) – other people in the lab are working on samples from terrestrial and marine ecosystems that are definitely not anywhere near Bocas del Toro, which could throw off my data completely.

So basically, I have been high-risk pipetting away, taking the biodiversity I sampled for and consolidating them into tiny tubes. On Monday, I finally finished extracting all (140+!) of my samples, and this is all I had to show for it – two tiny boxes of even tinier tubes. Now, I’m beginning the process of preparing my samples for sequencing, which involves even tinier tubes and an even smaller margin for error.

On the weekends (which I finally have consistently off!!), I’ve enjoyed hiking around some picturesque rainforests and walking around other really neat places in the city. It’s truly incredible to be surrounded by so much lush green in such a modern city. Animals that I wouldn’t even think of seeing at the Houston Zoo call home places that are as close as outside my window!

Even though I spent some time previously doing touristy things here almost exactly a year ago during my time studying abroad (anniversary is coming up soon!), there is always more to see. I visited Panama Viejo, the ruins of what once was Panama City in the 16th century. It’s incredible to think that a settlement of 5,000 people grew to be what the city is today – now skyscrapers tower over in the background of this World Heritage Site.

Some other favorite moments of mine have been buying fresh fruits and veggies at the open air market (Mercado de Abastos) across the highway from me and visiting my friend Coll in Gamboa, where the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute conducts a lot of rainforest studies. We biked around most of the town down to Pipeline Road, which is world-famous for birding. Unfortunately, I didn’t see many birds since I am a poor biker and focused mainly on trying to not fall face first into the muddy, uneven road. Regardless of my skills, it was still a super fun day!

It’s been nice to live in the moment, but unfortunately that means slacking on other responsibilities that are fast-approaching (including the beginning of my senior year)! Truly, for the vast majority of my time here, I have been waking up early, working 9-12 hours in lab, cooking, and sleeping.

The countdown has begun though…9 days until I return back to the United States!

This is a mandatory blog post for the Wagoner Foreign Study Fellowship.

As mentioned in my previous blog post, I spent some time in Bocas del Toro to myself, walking around the main street of the town and quietly people-watching. It was an overcast Saturday afternoon, and I sat down at the public park to eat a sandwich and watch the locals and tourists around me enjoy a day off.

While parents sat down on one of the many benches relax in the shade of tall tropical trees, small gangs of children played pretend with each other and ran around the playground nearby. People from all over the world were perusing the wares of indigenous vendors for a unique souvenir to bring back home. Haggling isn’t necessarily explicit here, but definitely possible. The streets were empty enough to walk in the middle of them, which gives a view of one side of town to the other.

Here, Latin American time is more apparent. Life moves slowly and the general attitude of people is relaxed and friendly. Everyone knows each other here, which makes the small town feel even cozier. For example, I talked to Randolf, a Bocatorreno (Bocas local), about how the trash problem, small business greed, and development has changed on the island  during his lifetime. People are easy to approach here, and everyone promotes each others’ businesses with stickers and word of mouth. The presence of the ocean must contribute to this somehow – whether people spend their time surfing or driving around people in boat taxis, people float about their daily activities and do not stress about being on time or staying productive.

However, in Panama City, things are different. Although I’m only an hour-long flight away from Bocas, the hustle and bustle of a large city takes over Latin American time. Traffic is persistent and aggressive, and people are always rushing from one place to another. The Panama Canal is always a looming presence, since the city lines the water and you can see large shipping boats constantly waiting their time to pass through. Industry and commerce occupy the downtown area, along with swanky large hotels.

I spend a good amount of my time working in a lab, so I don’t get a chance to observe a daily Panamanian’s life all that often. One thing that is apparent is the huge income inequality here – the glass high-rises don’t describe a huge proportion of the population. I’m still hesitant to walk alone on busy streets in some of the neighborhoods around me, but I can tell that between one street and another, there are totally different avenues of life taking place in a densely packed area.

One of my favorite places that I have gone so far is the Mercado de Abastos, or Wholesale Food Market. Here, informal stands of produce are displayed in an open air market and you get to walk through a maze of freshly picked produce. The more you buy, the cheaper the food is, making for great group-cooking potential. Some farmers are more vocal with their products, while others try and stay cool with a soda and just stare at you. I purchased two ripe avocados carefully selected for me by the shop owner for $1 each. I also purchased a small bag of “mamonchinos,” or rambutan, for a dollar and enjoyed the sour-sweet taste of this hairy and colorful fruit back at my dorm.

A fusion of the city and Bocas happened when I was in Casco Viejo, an incredibly touristy part of Panama City that I spend a lot of time in for its coffee shops and architecture. I happened across a man’s stand that sold some hand-made jewelry and in particular, a shark tooth necklace that caught my eye. His jewelry resembled that of someone I knew in Bocas named Pablo, who handcrafted jewelry from stones and things he collected from all over. I looked up to see someone wearing Bocas del Toro shirt and immediately started talking to him about Pablo, doing marine biology in Bocas, and more. He introduced himself as Tote and told me that he was actually best friends with Pablo (“como uno hermano”) and that his mom’s name is Elena, which is my name in Spanish! His brother is also the one responsible for all the “Sweet Love Bocas” tagging all over the main part of town.

The world became so small all of a sudden. Here in front of me was someone who was born and raised in Bocas del Toro, who knew exactly what I was talking about when I said that Bocas people were some of the friendliest people in Panama. He said the city-dwellers are always focused on profit and money, while Bocas people were more about having a good time and spreading “good energy.”

Another vendor nearby who was from the city came to disagree with him a bit, saying that profit-hungry city people was a huge generalization/stereotype. Regardless, they gave each other a friendly fist-bump and continued to participate in the tourist-jewelry hustle together. I left with a shark tooth necklace from Tote and a little crystal he gifted me for the serendipitous meeting we had.

Panama has a huge natural biodiversity and cultural diversity as well. Between urban and rural, coastal and agricultural, you can see the people become products of their environment (and vice-versa, of course). While admittedly, I am not as comfortable spending time alone in a foreign country unless I feel totally safe (which is usually in more tourist-y, English-heavy areas), the Panamanian spirit is still quite contagious and very different from that of the United States. But more on that in another post!

Here is one of my very delayed posts about a day I had to myself in Bocas del Toro, Panama.

I found myself one Sunday wanting to go on a Big Walk all throughout town to do some random musings and quietly observe the Sunday hum-drum of tourists and locals.

I knew my first stop had to be the cemetery. I drove by it so many times wondering how people here honor those who have passed. Some of the tombs were colored by tiles and fake flowers, since fresh ones are hard to find. Nature was  definitely present, with overgrowing plants and crashing waves right next to this peaceful last resting spot. I remember being surprised by how many foreign names were present in this cemetery, captains and businessmen from all over side-by-side with their local counterparts.

I also walked by this awesome sight:

“Sweet Love Bocas” is the mantra of Bocas del Toro, and you can see this graffiti all over town done by artist Fulo Coqueño.

Of course, I made my way to some of the tourist-y stands to check out molas. Molas are a form of traditional textile art made by the Guna, an indigenous group of Panama. These pieces are made by a reverse appliqué technique where pieces of cloth are sewn into panels with complex and multiple layers that are removed to create intricate designs. Before, the mola used to refer to their traditional dress, but after contact with missionaries, they began to transfer their designs on fabric. This article notes that the textile form was “an art of reaction, a hybrid art stemming from contact and conflict with whites” because the Guna were either forced or wanted to imitate Western clothing. Now, you can find Guna women selling hundreds of molas on the street, each carefully woven (if not sneakily machine stitched) and thought out. Some animals are apparently more symbolic than others in traditional Guna culture, but I was not able to distinguish this during my time there.

After grabbing a sandwich, getting the local’s discount at a boutique on a sarong, and enjoying the company of the town’s park, I did a little bit of grocery shopping. One thing that might strike you as unusual at first is the number of grocery stores here…and the fact that they are all owned by Chinese people. In fact, it is common to just refer to grocery stores as “Chinos” here for that reason. Oftentimes, I will speak to the cashiers and owners in Chinese just to ask them how their days are going. The origin for Chinese people in Panama can be traced back to the 1850s when Chinese laborers helped construct the Panama Canal Railway and later, the Panama Canal.

On my way back to the station trying to catch a taxi, I also got a glimpse of a local artist painting on her front yard. How painter-esque!

I also serendipitously met up with Juan, a waiter from a burger place that I knew from visiting there so often in two months. We got a beer at a local hotel happy hour and ended up talking for two hours about science and human existence. Kind of weird, kind of okay…

And that’s how I ended my solo adventure in Bocas, the last adventure I will have there for now.

I filmed a little here and there while out and about in Bocas del Toro, Panama and wanted to share a glimpse of what life has been like for the past two months. If this is your first time clicking on my blog, I hope you take the time to read over my other posts! The ocean is a beautiful place, and trying to understand it takes a lot of hard work and effort! Thankfully, it’s a lot easier to change every day consumption habits to help conserve these environments for generations to come.

Enjoy!

Yesterday marked the last day I will be in Bocas del Toro working at this field station. Boy has it been a crazy two months!

 

Two days ago, I took my final water samples at a few different sites around the bay. As I was swimming through the water, I was greeted by two (!) large stingrays and feeling nostalgic already.

Not to sound dramatic, but these past two months have been the most difficult I’ve ever had in my entire life. Although I have been dreaming of doing marine biology research at a real institution and laboratory for a while, the day-to-day realities of being in the field and working long, stressful hours definitely took a mental and physical toll on me. I’ve spent an above-average amount of time crying here.

With few exceptions, I have worked 6-day weeks for anywhere in-between 8-16 hours every day. These past two weeks where I was finishing sampling for my project, I spent a lot of time in lab alone sterilizing my equipment for the next day and staring at geckos eating insects that were attracted to the lab lights late at night.  One night, I was so tired from the field that I passed out at 7:00 pm and woke up at 4:30 in the morning to clean and prepare for that day’s sampling in the field. However exhausting, I still felt incredibly motivated to move forward with my project because it was mine (if that makes sense). If I didn’t spend those extra hours, no one was there to provide a safety net. This sense of independence was hard earned, but worth it.

One thing I’ve learned is that no matter how interesting the research is, people matter. My highs and lows were less about the actual data I was collecting, but how people made me feel about core aspects of my personality, intelligence, and work ethic. Fortunately, I had a great cohort of friends to lift my spirits when things were going south, and for them I am so thankful (truly).

I think most people think that I have been on a glorified vacation, but in reality, I think I need a vacation after this trip. I can’t ignore the sheer beauty of the islands and ocean though – I’ll definitely miss them more when I don’t get to see them every day.

I know the tone of this blog post was overwhelmingly sad. And don’t get me wrong- there were many high points all throughout (you might read them in the future since I’m so backlogged on blog posts!) I just think these emotions, feelings, and struggles are worth mentioning because they are so often masked by pretty pictures and whimsical assumptions of a tropical escape. If anything, these two months have put me face to face with the rest of my life, and I’ll be honest, sometimes it was a lot all at once. Onwards I go!

** This blog post was written last Saturday (July 1st) but never posted….sorry for the delay!!**

This last week of lab before everyone left (except for me) moved quite slowly – we finished up a few more sediment decantations (view below!), mangrove root masses, and seagrass samples. Slowly but surely, the lab got packed up into large boxes and I waved goodbye to the group of people I have been working closely with for the last month.

I got left behind to finish my project, which if you recall, got delayed since I needed to receive some filters from Rice (which I did, thanks BioSciences!)

It’s weird to transition from working with the same group of people every day in a room to working all alone. Today was my first *official* day alone, and working on my water samples by myself is a strange feeling. Although there are other people and labs here working (in fact, I’ve been sitting in the same room as two other girls for a few hours), I am much quieter and reserved. This next week will definitely be challenging because I will have little to no help in processing my samples and sterilizing my equipment for my project.

On a brighter note though, yesterday was perfect! Rosalyn and Amanda stayed behind an extra day to explore more of the area and I joined them to Bastimentos Island, a place I hadn’t been to yet.

We spent the morning sweating and hiking up to visit Up in the Hill, an organic farm and coffee shop. At one point, we were met with a surprising guest:

The hike was totally worth it. The farm is a hidden treasure in groves of trees and forest, and we were immediately greeted with the owners’ kids and cats. We took off our shoes and entered the Disney-like, cozy café, surrounded by handmade products and information about chocolate production. Just from looking in the nearby plants, I spotted a red poison dart frog! Since the farm is organic, a lot of rainforest creatures are able to coexist within this plot of land. One of the cats even ran past us with a freshly-caught lizard in its mouth.

We all decided on ordering a cold cacao drink with fresh coconut milk, which was as delicious as it sounds. Rosalyn described a tropical fruit she once had, only to have the owner swiftly hand us that fruit from a nearby tree. It’s known as custard apple in English, and definitely lives up to its name in terms of taste.

After a quick stop to Coco Hill, a vegan/vegetarian friendly restaurant, we made our way to Red Frog Beach, which required a small hike through a reforested rainforest that is part of the the Bastimentos Island National Park.

We spent the rest of the day relaxing and enjoying the beach. It was so peaceful and fun to jump into the large Caribbean Sea that we almost missed our boat back our main island!

In the past 10 days, I have:

• Climbed through insect-ridden mangroves once more to take their measurements
• Began working on my environmental DNA project!!!
• Made a funnel cake (sort-of)
• Abruptly halted my environmental DNA project because I did something wrong again
• Turned 21
• Actually used the kitchen for a proper meal

I feel confident in saying that I have become one with the mangroves. This past week, our group has taken above-ground biomass surveys, root density counts, habitat complexity scores, fish surveys, eDNA surveys, and root lengths. That’s all in addition to the past three weeks of processing the mangrove roots themselves in lab for the living organisms on them. All of these measurements help describe the structure and biodiversity of mangroves so that we can compare differences between sites and ecosystems. It’s crazy to think you can quantify so much in such a small sliver of the Caribbean.

In addition to this, I finally started taking data for my project! I am taking water samples from the ocean at all of our marine sites to see how environmental DNA floating in seawater matches up to the whole organisms we can see when processing mangrove and seagrass samples in the lab. More specifically, I am comparing my environmental DNA water samples to traditional fish surveys. While other scientists are swimming through the water, identifying and counting fish, I am sampling the water to capture the DNA that the fish are shedding. This way, we are all capturing a moment in time in mangroves, seagrasses, and coral when fish (and their DNA) are present. It’s a lot easier and less invasive to take water samples than to spend hours snorkeling through these ecosystems, so hopefully I find that the fish diversity in my water samples is similar to the fish diversity that the other scientists are finding. Plus, it will be interesting to see how fish diversity changes between mangroves, seagrasses, and corals.

Because it takes much longer to do a traditional fish survey than it does to sample water, I filter my water samples while in the field on the boat. To filter a water sample for its environmental DNA, I push water through a filter that is fine enough to trap DNA in it, but not the rest of the water. That filter gets frozen until DNA extraction can be done. In order to force water through such a small filter, I use a pump connected to a drill. This whole system was optimized with the Funnel Cake, a vision of Coll’s and mine. We found a broken bucket and sawed off the cracked top. With the bottom of the bucket, we connected together all the parts necessary for water filtering. Now, the whole system fits into something close to the size of a baking pan…thus the name Funnel Cake.

But then… a small disaster struck. I brought replacement filters to put into the funnels (the cup-like thing on the Funnel Cake), but they were the wrong item. Now, sampling has been briefly halted and I will stay behind at the field station a bit longer to finish. Such is the reality of field work – mistakes may happen, but most are easily remedied. A package from Rice will be in my hands soon and my facial expression will be the same as the one below when another package for me arrived (thanks Correa Lab + BioSciences crew!)

Oh also, I turned 21 last Saturday! I had been celebrating the long overdue start to my project by eating delicious food and legally having a few happy hour drinks after long days in the field. On my actual birthday, I helped decant sediment samples and then went out to dinner and dancing. I ate the best fish burger I’ve ever had, along with a fresh fruit smoothie with a splash of rum.

Today, I made pineapple fried rice for the group and an apple birthday cake was made for me by Rosalyn (and others)! Even though a lot has happened this week, it’s nice to know that there is always a supportive group nearby to keep spirits high! 🙂

 

Our lab just finished processing 160+ mangrove roots, which constitutes the largest mangrove biodiversity survey effort attempted…ever.

(Almost) every day for the past 3 weeks, we have been tirelessly going through mangrove roots from different mangrove forests around the archipelago and quantifying their biodiversity by carefully collecting organisms and processing every single aspect of the root – down to the water that it came in.

Here is the final root I will be doing for a long, long time:

Living on and inside this root included shrimps, brittle stars, crabs, tunicates, amphipods, isopods, flatworms (and other worms), and more. It’s incredible to think that the roots of a tree can support so much marine life on its own.

Some other cool organisms that were found on our roots and collected in the water:

To celebrate the end of processing mangrove roots, I went fishing off the dock. After writing about Rosalyn’s research on microplastics in seafood a few days ago, we are going to try and see if we can examine fish guts here from species that are generalists (not picky eaters). I haven’t been fishing for a long time and stopped after learning about overfishing…but for science, I gave it another shot. To be honest, it was quite fun, especially after I caught a snapper and was able to let it go!

This year’s conservation focus for World Ocean’s Day is “encouraging solutions to plastic pollution and preventing marine litter for a healthier ocean and a better future.”

I think it’s fair to say that we know our oceans are becoming plastic soups. Plastics never truly degrade – they only get broken up into smaller and smaller pieces. Every piece of plastic ever made still exists somewhere in our environment.

Here’s a quick refresher on how plastic moves from our hands to elsewhere (and everywhere):

Here in Bocas del Toro, waste management efforts are fairly poor. There is little to no recycling effort and trash gets burned or dumped into the ocean. This is not a problem of the local residents – rather, the transient flow of tourists makes it difficult to establish a precedent for recycling. In addition, waste management systems largely dictate how individuals are able to deal with trash, so even if someone wanted to responsibly get rid of their waste in town here, they might not be able to here due to structural forces much larger than them.

However, there are people in this area who are trying to raise awareness about plastic usage in Bocas. The Plastic Water Bottle Village (a place still on my to-visit list) is an “eco-residential community” of homes that are built from recycled plastic water bottles. The creator of the village, Robert Bezeau, estimates that he has collected over one million bottles over the course of a year and a half. However, local rumors indicate some skepticism about its actual feasibility. Regardless, Robert also spearheaded a Bocas recycling program in 2012. I hope to actually have a conversation with him about how to reduce everyday waste!

One of the first things I noticed when I snorkeled along mangrove roots here was the amount of trash that got caught in them. Even deeper in the mangrove forest, high tides swept whole plastic items and stuck them in-between roots. Although items like plastic bags, beer bottles, and other unidentifiable garbage may seem integrated into the ecosystem since marine organisms live on and around them, there are less conspicuous consequences that are also taking place. Even today, it didn’t take much effort (maybe 30 seconds?) for me to spot bits of garbage entangled deep within the mangrove roots and forest.

One of those consequences is that our waste into the ocean is making its way back to our dinner plates. My friend and lab mate Rosalyn actually did research on the prevalence of plastics in seafood that was marketed for human consumption.

After collecting seafood on sale for human consumption in Makassar, Indonesia and California, it was found that anthropogenic debris was present in 28% of individual fish in Makassar, Indonesia and 25% of individual fish in California. In Indonesia, the majority of anthropogenic waste was plastic debris while in the US, the majority of anthropogenic waste was plastic and synthetic fibers. Rosalyn explained that this is probably due to the different waste management infrastructures present in both countries – in Indonesia, 30% of solid waste that is generated is not processed and directly discarded into waterways while in California, more advanced waste management systems prevent large plastic items to be discarded in the ocean, however waste water outfalls result in plastics ending up in about the same percentages for seafood intended for human consumption in both places.

Would you feed plastic to the seafood you’re eating? Sounds pretty unappetizing to me.

Check out the awesome paper she co-authored in Nature Communications here: Rochman, C. M. et al. Anthropogenic debris in seafood: Plastic debris and fibers from textiles in fish and bivalves sold for human consumption. Sci. Rep. 5, 14340; doi: 10.1038/srep14340 (2015).

Back in the US, I am able to freely disassociate from myself from the waste I produce. Once my waste ends up in a trash can or recycling bin, it’s out of sight and out of mind. Here, I am literally swimming in garbage most times I enter the water. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the people in Bocas del Toro, Panama are more negligent when it comes to their wastefulness  – if anything, it just means that local impacts are more visible.

Ideally, studying the biodiversity of nearshore marine ecosystems and their means examining unaltered and untouched marine habitats and communities, but that no longer is the norm. In contrast, more and more scientists will have to account for human impact (like pollution and waste) in their research and data analyses.

We choose to bring more plastic into existence on this planet, and there’s not a lot we can do about it (currently) once it enters prolifically into our oceans and environment. Being conscientious about the consequences of convenience is a great first step, and one that can make a huge difference!

Here’s a link to 51 ways you can reduce your plastic usage, courtesy of Reef Relief: https://www.reefrelief.org/2013/01/51-ways-to-reduce-plastic-use-or-completely-eliminate-it/ Continue reading →

Today, I spent three hours identifying shrimps for fun with our expert decapod taxonomist, Paulo!

In particular, my friend Coll and I were able to get to the species level of a snapping shrimp, which make up the most distinctive sound on coral reefs and most of the ocean. The crackling and popping noises you hear underwater are due to the loud sound that they are able to make with a dominant claw, which emit a powerful wave of bubbles that can stun fish much larger than them in size.

Snapping shrimp are in the family Alpheidae and can be found worldwide. The species we identified was from one of two prominent genera, Synalpheus. In our mangrove root samples, we end up finding more Synalpheus shrimp than any other genera of shrimp! You know you have one in your mangrove root sample because you can hear each one snap in your tub. If you have large sponges that kind of have Swiss-cheese like holes, it’s very likely that you’ll find many Synalpheus shrimps finding shelter deep within them. A large orange clionid sponge encrusting on one of our roots had over 40 of them!

Apparently, there have been studies showing that Synalpheus shrimp can live in large colonies (up to 300 members!) and exhibit eusocial organization. All of the members are the offspring of a single large queen female and tend to /defend her as male soldiers. Only a single male (or a lucky few) are able to directly pass on their genes by mating with the queen. This unique social structure has been hypothesized to exist because members in the group are able to get more benefits (like division of labor) this way instead of each trying to reproduce themselves. These benefits are known as inclusive fitness benefits.

Anyways, identifying any type of shrimp is no easy task. Even while using taxonomic key with a diagram of all the potential visible parts of a shrimp, getting down to the (correct) genus took close to an hour for each shrimp. The shrimps we were looking at were semi-transparent, which meant some of the small hairs and “teeth-like” structures on their heads were close to invisible. It definitely takes a trained eye to be able to quickly work through the step-by-step nature of taxonomic keys. Once Paulo gave us a satisfied thumbs-up at our educated guesses, the puzzling looks on our faces turned into relieved high-fives. Coll and I identified a Synalpheus dardeaui after looking at very specific parts of the legs, mouth parts, tail, and more of a shrimp no more than three centimeters.

I definitely came to appreciate the hard work that it takes to describe species and relate them together enough to create step-by-step taxonomic guides. Taxonomy is no longer a “hot” field to pursue, so there a fewer specialists in sometimes cryptic and under-described groups who are taking on species identification challenges from all over the world. But the ability to describe and classify an organism in relation to others is still extremely important – phylogenies can’t die with the few specialists who currently study them!