Biology Department Professors Patricia Szczys and Mathew Graham accompanied 14 students on a 12-day excursion to Costa Rica in late May 2018. Since January, students worked in small groups to read the primary literature and then developed original research proposals for field experiments. While at Selva Verde Lodge located in Costa Rica’s lowland humid rainforest, students conducted their experiments, gathering original data related to foraging, predator avoidance and conspecific recognition in ants, frogs and snakes. Students also visited successional forests at the base of the Arenal Volcano, and the cloud forest at Monteverde. Unique to this trip was the celebration of 50 consecutive years that the biology Department at Eastern has provided international tropical biology field experiences to our students.
