Paramo | Ecology of the past

Uncovering Ecuador’s landscapes and cultures: A student adventure

August 16, 2023
Bianca Tacoronte Gomes

By: Lina Cabrera Sáenz and Bianca Gomes

We invite you to join us on an incredible journey through the heart of Ecuador, where a group of adventurous students from Florida Institute of Technology embarked on a life-changing experience as part of the Neotropical Archaeoecology summer field course. Buckle up as we delve into the marvels of nature, indigenous cultures, and unforgettable experiences. Let’s dive right in!

Unveiling the Andes

Our adventure began with a breath-taking visit to the Paramo at Cayambe-Coca National Park. Paramos are high altitude (3000-4000 metres) wet grasslands above the tree line and below the snow line within the equatorial Andes. Our tour guides Patricio and Byron gave us information about the local vegetation, focusing on the Polylepis tree (locally known as “paper tree”), which is unique to this sort of habitat. They also told us about some of the fascinating wildlife that can be seen here, such as the Andean Bear (Tremarctos ornatus) and the Andean Puma (Puma concolor).

We then descended through the cloud forest (3,600–3,400 meters) and lower montane rainforest (3,400–2,500 meters). Across these various habitats, we documented changes in hummingbird abundance and recorded their behaviour at four different feeder points: Guango Lodge, La Brisa, San Isidro Lodge, and Cascada el Hollin. The sheer diversity of hummingbird species left us in awe, and we marvelled at their iridescent feathers and incredible agility.

We explored a waterfall near San Isidro Lodge (https://cabanasanisidro.com), and we were able to observe pre-Inca pottery. At the lodge we also saw a diverse array of bird species, which was delightful! The forest’s nightlife brought us close encounters with a group of nocturnal monkeys, and to our surprise, we stumbled upon a very rare mountain tapir. The following morning we saw a small agouti (a small rodent) prowling around the lodge, and ended our adventures in the cloud forest on a high note.

San Isidro waterfall and some of the animal diversity we observed

Netherlands Annual Ecology Meeting 2019

February 11, 2019
WDG

The Netherlands Annual Ecology Meeting (NAEM) 2019 takes place in the 12 and 13 February. This annual showcase of predominantly Dutch based ecological research will take place, as usual, at Conference Centre “De Werelt” (Lunteren). I am particularly excited this year as, along with Marielos Pena Carlos and Patrick Jansen, I am co-convening a session on “Tropical Ecology”. The first time I have contributed to the program in this way. Our session will be on the second day of the conference and contain the following exciting presentations:

15:00 Predator avoidance and prey tracking in a Neotropical forest (Constant Swinkels, Wageningen University & Research)
15:20 The role of fig volatiles in pollinator specificity and fig diversity (Aafke Oldenbeuving, Naturalis Biodiversity Center)
15:40 Mangrove Atlantis: Can mangroves keep up with extreme land-subsidence? (Celine van Bijsterveldt, Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research)
16:00 Break
16:10 The fate of forests in agro-forest frontier landscapes, implications for conservation (Madelon Lohbeck, Wageningen University & Research)
16:30 Trends in the variability of Specific Leaf Area of paramo vegetation during succession (Marian Cabrera, University of Amsterdam)
16:50 Succession dynamics of tree and soil fungal communities in regenerating tropical rainforests are strongly influenced by regional species pool and abiotic factors (Irene Adamo, Naturalis Biodiversity Center)

UvA Open day – 3D visualization of the ice ages in the Andes

October 27, 2017
WDG

Researchers in the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED) at the University of Amsterdam have been studying the páramos and Andean ecosystems for over 50 years. These highly diverse ecosystems are currently restricted to mountain-tops (resembling an archipelago of islands in the sky), but in the past dominated large surface areas throughout the Northern Andes. Climate change determined the degree of páramo fragmentation and connectivity in the past, and site-specific results have been integrated into a GIS-environment (visualization) for southern Colombia and the entire Northern Andes by IBED researchers Suzette Flantua and Henry Hooghiemstra.

Watch the ‘Time machine: Ice ages in the Andes’ video and see its presentation at the recent IBED Open Day:

Online:

Cuesta, F., Muriel, P., Llambí, L.D., Halloy, S., Aguirre, N., Beck, S., Carilla, J., Meneses, R.I., Cuello, S., Grau, A., Gámez, L.E., Irazábal, J., Jácome, J., Jaramillo, R., Ramírez, L., Samaniego, N., Suárez-Duque, D., Thompson, N., Tupayachi, A., Viñas, P., Yager, K., Becerra, M.T., Pauli, H. & Gosling, W.D. (2016) Latitudinal and altitudinal patterns of plant community diversity on mountain summits across the tropical Andes. Ecography. DOI: 10.1111/ecog.02567