My babies are 6 months old today! I wouldn't have expected how much care, attention, patience, and love it took to be a parent of 79 Cecropia obtusifolia saplings. Next week, they will graduate from their solitary lives and receive their very own ant colony to nourish - colonies that I will transplant from trees in the jungle that I have been monitoring for months. This delicate moment has been over a year in the making.
Food bodies grow fast
Food bodies grow on Cecropia trees to provide nutrients to their resident ant colony, but I never knew how fast they grow because workers clear them away so efficiently. I was able to find a tree that had not been colonized by ants yet and was pumping out food bodies like a factory. Watch them grow in real time in this video I took.
Phase I Complete
The flickomatic 3.0 in action. Also, pictured are 3 out of 4 of the common Cecropia species here in Soberania. Can you identify them?
After a productive morning, Coline and I have finished flicking all my field trees. This means that Phase I (all field behavior trials) of this grandiose experiment has been completed! Now we have some planning and prepping to do for the harvest as we wait for the greenhouse plants to get big enough. Phase II will be harvesting the field trees, extracting the colonies, and implanting them into the greenhouse trees.
Dark stem light stem
The greenhouse Cecropias are growing nicely! A mystery I'm currently looking into - approximately half of them have dark stems, and the other half light. It is a very clear distinction and that is the only difference I can tell between them after a first pass. I will contact the experts.
Another colony lost . . . to an anteater
It is a sad day when a long-studied colony is lost. It happens for all types of reason - a careless hacking gardener, a giant crushing treefall, a mysterious colony disappearance, a spiteful enemy, and the list goes on. This case however, points to a large vertebrate hungry for ant larvae. Though I cannot be certain, this attack looks like the work of a fearless tamandua anteater with the Cecropia stem snapped and holes intentionally gouged into brood-containing internodes. I'm sure the colony didn't let the beast enjoy its meal too much. For all the good the ants do for the protection of their tree, this is one danger Cecropias bare in hosting an ant colony: some animals eat ants and are willing to destroy whatever stands between them and a tasty meal. At least we can celebrate the fact that this was a natural loss, and an interesting one at that. I need to install some camera traps.
We have germination
The backup seedlings for the greenhouse experiment are on their way to scientific greatness.