Fieldwork

Mud, sweat and soggy boots

Wellington boots dry out on the village green after a day in the swamps. Sturdy rubber boots are invaluable, both for local people hunting and harvesting resources from the swamps, and for fieldworkers measuring trees and sampling peat from the flooded forest floor. Within minutes of stepping into the forest, clothes are drenched in sweat and trousers are caked in mud. All too often, rubber boots fill with swamp water within minutes and all attempts at staying dry are forgotten. But at least the boots continue to do their main job – to protect against snakebites. After a day in the forest the river provides a refreshing bath for bodies, clothes and boots, and by morning, it’s time to put your still-damp clothes and boots back on and venture into the swamp once again.

Photo: Manolo Martín Brañas

Canoeing through the forest

Field assistant James Lopez paddles the last few hundred metres through flooded forest to reach the palm swamp where survey plots are being studied by PhD student Anna Macphie.

Once away from the main channel and tributaries, the outboard motor is switched off in favour of slower, more controllable paddle-power to avoid submerged tree trunks and floating logs which could damage the motor and capsize the boat. Widespread flooding can ease accessibility to areas of peatland that are far from river margins and would be difficult to reach on foot.

Photo: Anna Macphie

Travelling between field sites in a peque-peque 

A canoe with a small outboard motor, called a peque-peque after the sound it makes, forms a wake as it speeds along the Tigre river with field assistant Don Julio asleep in the bow. Time spent on the river provides a welcome change from the forest as the breeze blows away the mosquitoes and provides a new perspective on the landscape. Birds fly overhead, kingfishers dart from bank to bank, and white cranes take flight, startled by the peque-peque. Now and then, a pink river dolphin makes a surprising splash and disappears in search of fish.

Photo: Ian Lawson

Looking back in time

A core sample taken from 1.7 m below the ground in a palm swamp using a peat corer. The organic-rich, brown peat on the right overlies pale grey clay at the base (on the left). Back in the lab, the core will be used by PhD student Dael Sassoon to reconstruct the long-term ecological history of the peatlands. Fossil pollen, produced by plants growing locally when the sediments and peat formed, is well preserved in the low-oxygen, acidic peatland conditions. Pollen extracted from cores like this typically documents the change in environment from river, to lake, to open peatland, and finally to palm swamp, over the course of centuries or millennia.

Photo: Dael Sassoon

Sampling lake sediments

A suitable raft is improvised from two canoes, tied together and anchored with long bamboo poles, and paddled out to the centre of lake Quistococha. From this platform, sediment samples can be taken from the bottom of the lake.

Like peat, lake sediments build up over time. The waterlogged, anaerobic environment prevents pollen grains and other organic material from decaying, creating an archive of past changes in the lake and surrounding environment. Layers of charcoal show when fires were more common, and therefore when humans were present locally in the landscape.

Fragments of charcoal in the Quistococha sediments record the presence of people who lived on the lake shore 2,500 years ago, long before the first appearance of the peatland palm swamp which surrounds the lake today. Although these people were burning wood, there is no evidence in the pollen record that they were causing any great changes in the vegetation.

Photo: Katy Roucoux

Red paint on trees in a census plot

A red stripe marks trees that have been measured and identified within a survey plot in a peatland forest. To learn more about a forest ecosystem, a representative plot measuring 50 by 100 metres is marked out and every tree within it is tagged and recorded. A wide range of data are collected including the species, heights, and diameters of each tree. This allows researchers to calculate the amount of carbon held in the forest.

Photo: Ian Lawson

Measuring palm tree height

Expert tree-climber Julio Irarica carries the end of a tape measure up into the forest canopy, while peatland researcher Greta Dargie waits below to record the measurements.

Stem height is difficult to measure precisely from the ground. The only reliable way to measure it is to climb to the top of each palm tree. The information about tree growth rates resulting from yearly measurements contributes to our understanding of peatland forest productivity; that is, how much organic material the forest produces and how much extra carbon it stores each year.

Tree climbing also provides an opportunity to take a sample of a tree’s leaves and flowers. Many of the closely-related species in these forests can only be identified with confidence by comparing specimens with reference collections in a herbarium (akin to a library of plants). 

Photo: Ian Lawson

A tree in a permanent forest plot

Every tree within a permanent survey plot is marked with red paint and a numbered aluminium tag. The diameter of the trees is typically remeasured every few years, which makes it possible to measure how quickly each tree is growing, and how much carbon it is storing. Sometimes results are needed more quickly. Here a dendrometer (literally ‘tree-measuring’) band has been fitted around the trunk, with a spring to allow for expansion. Every few months, the amount of stretch in the dendrometer band is measured to the millimetre. Monitoring trees in this way generates the data needed to understand the health and dynamics of these forests, their contribution to nutrient cycling, and hence their role in mitigating climate change.

Photo: Ian Lawson

An experiment in decay

Green plastic mesh bags filled with dead leaves sit on the forest floor, ready to be buried in the peat as part of an experiment that will show the speed at which organic matter decays. A subset of these litter bags will be taken every three months and the contents dried and weighed. The weight lost represents the amount of organic material that has decomposed. Beside them, the top of a grey plastic dip well tube is marked with flagging tape. This perforated tube extends one metre down into the peat, where an automatic water level logger is suspended in the tube. This instrument will quietly record the changing height of the water table every fifteen minutes throughout the two years of the experiment, allowing researchers to measure the effect of flooding on the speed of decomposition.

Photo: Ian Lawson

Installing a rain gauge

Field assistant Julio Irarica installs a rain gauge in Veinte de Enero on the Marañón river. Average annual rainfall in this part of the Amazon basin is around 3,000 mm per year, more than four times as much as in eastern Fife. Measuring the volume of water that falls and how it varies through the year helps researchers to understand the variation in peatland water levels. A local rainstorm usually quickly leads to high water levels in the peatlands, but longer-term changes in ground water flows and river floods can reflect rainfall and snow melt patterns far upstream in the Andes.

Photo: Ian Lawson

Mud, sweat and soggy boots

Wellington boots dry out on the village green after a day in the swamps. Sturdy rubber boots are invaluable, both for local people hunting and harvesting resources from the swamps, and for fieldworkers measuring trees and sampling peat from the flooded forest floor. Within minutes of stepping into the forest, clothes are drenched in sweat and trousers are caked in mud. All too often, rubber boots fill with swamp water within minutes and all attempts at staying dry are forgotten. But at least the boots continue to do their main job – to protect against snakebites. After a day in the forest the river provides a refreshing bath for bodies, clothes and boots, and by morning, it’s time to put your still-damp clothes and boots back on and venture into the swamp once again.

Photo: Manolo Martín Brañas

Canoeing through the forest

Field assistant James Lopez paddles the last few hundred metres through flooded forest to reach the palm swamp where survey plots are being studied by PhD student Anna Macphie.

Once away from the main channel and tributaries, the outboard motor is switched off in favour of slower, more controllable paddle-power to avoid submerged tree trunks and floating logs which could damage the motor and capsize the boat. Widespread flooding can ease accessibility to areas of peatland that are far from river margins and would be difficult to reach on foot.

Photo: Anna Macphie

Travelling between field sites in a peque-peque 

A canoe with a small outboard motor, called a peque-peque after the sound it makes, forms a wake as it speeds along the Tigre river with field assistant Don Julio asleep in the bow. Time spent on the river provides a welcome change from the forest as the breeze blows away the mosquitoes and provides a new perspective on the landscape. Birds fly overhead, kingfishers dart from bank to bank, and white cranes take flight, startled by the peque-peque. Now and then, a pink river dolphin makes a surprising splash and disappears in search of fish.

Photo: Ian Lawson

Looking back in time

A core sample taken from 1.7 m below the ground in a palm swamp using a peat corer. The organic-rich, brown peat on the right overlies pale grey clay at the base (on the left). Back in the lab, the core will be used by PhD student Dael Sassoon to reconstruct the long-term ecological history of the peatlands. Fossil pollen, produced by plants growing locally when the sediments and peat formed, is well preserved in the low-oxygen, acidic peatland conditions. Pollen extracted from cores like this typically documents the change in environment from river, to lake, to open peatland, and finally to palm swamp, over the course of centuries or millennia.

Photo: Dael Sassoon

Sampling lake sediments

A suitable raft is improvised from two canoes, tied together and anchored with long bamboo poles, and paddled out to the centre of lake Quistococha. From this platform, sediment samples can be taken from the bottom of the lake.

Like peat, lake sediments build up over time. The waterlogged, anaerobic environment prevents pollen grains and other organic material from decaying, creating an archive of past changes in the lake and surrounding environment. Layers of charcoal show when fires were more common, and therefore when humans were present locally in the landscape.

Fragments of charcoal in the Quistococha sediments record the presence of people who lived on the lake shore 2,500 years ago, long before the first appearance of the peatland palm swamp which surrounds the lake today. Although these people were burning wood, there is no evidence in the pollen record that they were causing any great changes in the vegetation.

Photo: Katy Roucoux

Red paint on trees in a census plot

A red stripe marks trees that have been measured and identified within a survey plot in a peatland forest. To learn more about a forest ecosystem, a representative plot measuring 50 by 100 metres is marked out and every tree within it is tagged and recorded. A wide range of data are collected including the species, heights, and diameters of each tree. This allows researchers to calculate the amount of carbon held in the forest.

Photo: Ian Lawson

Measuring palm tree height

Expert tree-climber Julio Irarica carries the end of a tape measure up into the forest canopy, while peatland researcher Greta Dargie waits below to record the measurements.

Stem height is difficult to measure precisely from the ground. The only reliable way to measure it is to climb to the top of each palm tree. The information about tree growth rates resulting from yearly measurements contributes to our understanding of peatland forest productivity; that is, how much organic material the forest produces and how much extra carbon it stores each year.

Tree climbing also provides an opportunity to take a sample of a tree’s leaves and flowers. Many of the closely-related species in these forests can only be identified with confidence by comparing specimens with reference collections in a herbarium (akin to a library of plants). 

Photo: Ian Lawson

A tree in a permanent forest plot

Every tree within a permanent survey plot is marked with red paint and a numbered aluminium tag. The diameter of the trees is typically remeasured every few years, which makes it possible to measure how quickly each tree is growing, and how much carbon it is storing. Sometimes results are needed more quickly. Here a dendrometer (literally ‘tree-measuring’) band has been fitted around the trunk, with a spring to allow for expansion. Every few months, the amount of stretch in the dendrometer band is measured to the millimetre. Monitoring trees in this way generates the data needed to understand the health and dynamics of these forests, their contribution to nutrient cycling, and hence their role in mitigating climate change.

Photo: Ian Lawson

An experiment in decay

Green plastic mesh bags filled with dead leaves sit on the forest floor, ready to be buried in the peat as part of an experiment that will show the speed at which organic matter decays. A subset of these litter bags will be taken every three months and the contents dried and weighed. The weight lost represents the amount of organic material that has decomposed. Beside them, the top of a grey plastic dip well tube is marked with flagging tape. This perforated tube extends one metre down into the peat, where an automatic water level logger is suspended in the tube. This instrument will quietly record the changing height of the water table every fifteen minutes throughout the two years of the experiment, allowing researchers to measure the effect of flooding on the speed of decomposition.

Photo: Ian Lawson

Installing a rain gauge

Field assistant Julio Irarica installs a rain gauge in Veinte de Enero on the Marañón river. Average annual rainfall in this part of the Amazon basin is around 3,000 mm per year, more than four times as much as in eastern Fife. Measuring the volume of water that falls and how it varies through the year helps researchers to understand the variation in peatland water levels. A local rainstorm usually quickly leads to high water levels in the peatlands, but longer-term changes in ground water flows and river floods can reflect rainfall and snow melt patterns far upstream in the Andes.

Photo: Ian Lawson

Riding through the forest in a motorized canoe, at the start of a day of fieldwork.