Along with some great moments, came some bad. Here are some of the “worst” things about our Ethiopia expedition: Car trouble Hornbill-hitting-windscreen (will send from laptop) Eating ONLY with the right hand (because the left is used for something else) Watching where you step….. the church forest ground abounds with dung-beetle habitat Eucalpyt plantings that […]
As I muse about our last 3 weeks in Ethiopia, and count my blessings for toasted cheese sandwiches, sidewalks, books, and cotton sheets on my bed in America, I think about the incredible experiences of working in Ethiopia. The best moments: Our amazing team of scientists and citizens the church leadership, with their vision to […]
Tune in to WEDU public television tonight (Thursday, August 26) at 8 p.m. as research by New College students and faculty on invasive pythons in Florida is featured on Gulf Coast Journal with Jack Perkins. This past year, students from biology professor Meg Lowman’s ecology and conservation biology classes, as well as bioinformatics and computational […]
Dr. Lowman is featured in this article in La Vanguardia (Catalonia’s leading daily newspaper). “El Techo de los bosques es el octavo continente” PDF of the original article Spanish text of the article Text of article translated to English using Google Translate
Here are a few of the critters we were surveying — got 135 birds, but all but about 11 were outside the church forests. We got over 3000 insects as mentioned earlier, with a large portion Diptera and also Coleoptera. Of note many of the Coleoptera tend to be dung beetles (exact counts to follow) […]
We are in our final phases of the Ethiopia expedition, with over 3000 insects logged by various field methods, over 1000-person hours of field time, and several thousand hours of field work yet to process back in our labs and libraries at home institutions. The project was overwhelming and inspirational. We are humbled by the […]
Dr. Catherine Cardelús writes about the epiphytes they have found in the church forests of Ethiopia so far: I am thrilled that we have epiphytes! Thus far I have found 5 species of epiphytic ferns at the low elevation site, Zhara, and 4 species of epiphytic ferns at the higher elevation, Debresena. One species overlaps […]
Some various photos from our activities in the field here in Ethiopia:
We awoke to a heavy downpour so have postponed our morning checking for insects to this afternoon. Meantime, the holy mass takes place a noon, so we will not be able to access the Church forest until the mass is over. Our projected field time is 2 pm — most of the people walk many […]
Photos of a few members of the biodiversity team working in the church forests of Ethiopia: Dr. Cat Cardelus from Colgate University Dr. Neville Winchester, University of British Columbia Dr. Hal Heatwole, North Carolina State University
