A group of students and professors from the University of Wyoming’s Environmental and Natural Resources Department traveled to Panama at the end of July for a four-week ecosystem services field course. The group included seven students and professors Scott Miller and Fred Ogden, the latter one of four principal investigators on the Agua Salud Project. The course took advantage of the Agua Salud experimental landscape and study sites to provide the students with field and laboratory experience related to tropical forestry and hydrology and involve them in research on the connections between hydrology, geochemistry, and land cover.
PHOTO: (l-r) Brie Richardson, Nathalie Macsalka, Nibret Abebe, Aaron Rutledge, Bob Stallard, Ryan Anderson, Nathaniel Hadley Dike, and Scott Miller. By Trey Crouch.
The students participated in various hydrological activities, including two geophysical electrical tomography experiments, installation of shallow groundwater-monitoring wells, and collection and lab analysis of water samples taken from the various Agua Salud stream networks. They also participated in forestry fieldwork by taking crown and DBH measurements in the teak and secondary-growth catchments.
PHOTO: (l-r) Conducting the geophysical tomography tracer experiment in the native species plantation. By Trey Crouch.