Welcome to Mexico!

About to land in Monterrey!

Welcome to my new blog about my PhD research adventures in Mexico! I’m starting this blog while I am in Mexico for my first summer of field work, but I hope to continue the blog past this summer to follow my future field seasons and other research-related things such as attending conferences and developments of my research. So far I’ve been in Mexico for two and a half weeks (out of a total of six); sorry for not getting around to writing this blog sooner but I hope this first post will get everyone caught up! (A little disclaimer about the photos/margins: I tried to make the margins around the photos consistent and even, but for some reason Blogger would not accept my changes, so please forgive the poor formatting. I will work on fixing the problem in future posts, but Blogger apparently is stubbornly resistant to accepting changes to the format, so we'll see.)

Before I get any further though, I’d like to thank the University of Georgia Latin American and Caribbean Studies Institute and the Graduate School for providing funding for this first summer of my PhD work. Without their assistance coming here would have been much, much harder. Their support is invaluable for my first summer of work as I establish contacts in-country and further develop my research questions. Thank you!

I guess some background would be good to start off with: Last August (2014) I started my PhD in the University of Georgia’s Integrative Conservation program (with my home department of the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources). As its
name implies, the ICON program focuses on joining the natural and social sciences in an integrative approach to doing conservation. The program approaches conservation training with the idea that the environmental issues facing society today cannot be considered in a vacuum devoid of people, and that it is critical to understand both the environmental as well as social aspects of any system. Additionally, for those of us within the program, it stresses the importance of becoming versed in the theoretical basis and methods of the natural as well as social sciences.

My own interests are with bats and ecosystem services (the benefits that bats provide to people, such as pollination and pest control of our agricultural crops), especially in transboundary contexts, for example, with migratory bats that cross international borders. More specifically, for my PhD research I will be focusing on a couple of the nectarivorous (nectar-feeding) bats that pollinate agaves in Mexico (and the US): the endangered Greater (or Mexican) Long-nosed Bat (Leptonycteris nivalis) and the Mexican Long-tongued Bat (Choeronycteris mexicana). I am interested in understanding how these bats, the plants on which they feed, and the people who live in the area interact within a social-ecological system in northeastern Mexico in the states of Coahuila and Nuevo León. A social-ecological system is a system in which social and ecological components are “not just linked but truly interconnected and co-evolving across spatial and temporal scales” (http://bit.ly/1cFh3l6). I am interested in better understanding where these bats roost and forage, how the rural communities use the agaves on which the bats feed (for example, communities make and sell products made from agaves such as agua miel (“honey water” from the sap of the agave) and pulque (fermented agua miel)), how pollination of agaves by bats could benefit the communities, and how bat conservation goals could be incorporated into agave management by these communities in a mutually-beneficial way.

For part of this summer (May 20 – July 4) I’m in northeastern Mexico in Monterrey, Nuevo León, where I am working with a local Mexican conservation NGO called Especies, Sociedad y Habitat, A.C.. I’m helping ESHAC with their conservation project for bats in the region, including the two species of bats I’m interested in. Our activities during my stay include: visiting several known roosting caves of L. nivalis and C. mexicana to take population counts and to mist net to see if any are pregnant/lactating (indicating that the cave is a maternity cave); looking for a couple of reported but unconfirmed bat caves in the Protected Areas; monitoring agave fields for bat feeding activity with mist nets and camera traps to identify the areas where the bats are foraging; conducting mist net surveys within a riparian (river) corridor within the Don Martín Protected Area in Coahuila to get baseline data on the bat species diversity and abundance;

The view from the office.

and leading a training workshop for about 10 members of the Sabinas community in Coahuila to teach them about how to monitor bats and agaves in their area so that they can continue these activities without the help of ESHAC. The director of ESHAC, Jose Juan Flores Maldonado (Josefo), has also taken me to the university in Monterrey, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, so that I could meet with several faculty members who are working with agaves or bats. They were all so gracious and welcoming and offered to provide assistance to me while I’m here, including desk space and access to their literature on agaves and bats. I definitely have a lot of homework to do to learn about the complexity of agaves and the bats in the region! All of these summer activities will help me further develop my dissertation research questions, and I plan to return here in the following summers to conduct my own field work with a project that will ideally be beneficial to ESHAC and their work.

Now that you know a little about what I’m doing here, I’ll talk a little about what I’ve been up to the past two and a half weeks! First of all, Monterrey is a big city nestled among several mountain ranges, including the northern end of the Sierra Madre Oriental range. The mountains look so beautiful! In Monterrey it’s definitely hot, but not super dry. I’m living in the upstairs apartment of one of the girls who works for ESHAC, Malu. She lives downstairs with her mom, dad, and brother. It’s definitely different from home (no screened windows, no AC, no hot water, no microwave, etc.) but it’s really nice.

Delicious mango with chili from
a street vendor!

The one bad thing about it is that it’s about an hour commute to the office, which is across the river in Guadalupe (a part of Monterrey). We take the train and then a bus, and the commute is BY FAR my least favorite part of the day. People are packed into the train like sardines, and nobody looks happy. Sometimes we have to wait for several trains to come and go before we can get on because they are stuffed to the gills. But driving in a car is just as bad for commuting, since the traffic is HORRIBLE!!! When we take trips into the field to places that are one to one and a half hours away it takes longer to get out of the city than it takes to get to the place once out. To give some perspective, the office is about 17 km (10.5 miles) from my house, but during a work day it can take over an hour to driver there. It’s crazy. One interesting thing I have noticed about the driving here is that while it is crazy, with everyone cutting everyone off and weaving in and out without signals, I oddly feel safer in a car here than in Atlanta’s traffic, since here it’s “expected” that those things happen and it’s normal (everyone does it), while in Atlanta it feels more haphazard. Riding on public transportation is also a little different for me since I get a lot of stares from people. Apparently I look different enough from everyone that I’m an “oddity”. I didn’t think I stood out that much, but I guess I am taller than almost all the women and many men, I have lighter hair, and I have green/light eyes, which is different from the typical medium to dark skin, black hair, and dark brown eyes. I thought I would see more tourists around the city but I have only seen two or three non-Mexicans since I’ve been here. But I definitely feel safe here and even wandered around the city a bit yesterday by myself, and never once felt unsafe. Speaking of wandering around, I love how there are so many food stands everywhere you go! Fresh fruit, tacos, drinks, desserts/pastries, you name it they have it! I’ve eaten the “street food” and while I don’t drink straight from the tap water (I treat it first) I have had drinks with ice in them and (knock on wood) I haven’t gotten sick yet.

Wandering through the mercados in
downtown Monterrey.

By far the biggest challenge for me so far has been the language. While I came here with some Spanish background, it had been quite awhile since I’ve actually practiced or talked much in it. Also, apparently the people in this region talk quite fast so that even Mexicans from other parts of the country can have a hard time understanding/following them. So needless to say I’ve been struggling a bit to keep up. Some days are good, but others aren’t so good. I can usually do a pretty good job of understanding people when we’re talking one-on-one, and my speaking isn’t that bad. The hardest thing for me is keeping up with casual conversations among groups of people. I usually can catch words here and there but then get lost while trying to process the whole conversation. I of course am trying to improve, but sometimes my brain just shuts off and I need to “rest” it. But then someone will say something to me or ask me a question, and then I’m like a deer in headlights because I wasn’t paying attention and I feel kind of embarrassed. This is all complicated by the fact that there are SO many colloquialisms and expressions/phrases unique to this area, so understanding a normal conversation is really hard. I feel like I can’t truly be myself here because of the language barrier. Normally I love to joke around, chat, etc. but here I can’t really do that as much because I don’t know how to say things. I’m noticing that I’m A LOT quieter here than at home, and mostly do a lot of listening (when in groups that is). I wish I could understand better when I listen, but I know with more time I will improve…

                                                          

My working time so far has been a mix of office work and field work. ESHAC is a small organization, with about nine or so people who are all Mexican and mostly around my age. The office is a small one but has everything one needs (even AC!). Some of us on the “bat team” took a trip to Rosillo Cave several hours away in Coahuila for a night of mist netting at the cave to try and catch L. nivalis. Unfortunately we didn’t catch any of them, but we did catch lots of Mexican Free-tailed Bats (Tadarida brasiliensis) since there were THOUSANDS of them roosting in the cave. The hike to the cave took about two hours over very uneven terrain, and my ankles and knees were not very happy after it. But we camped outside the cave and the scenery was beautiful. 

A storm rolling away on our way to Rosillo Cave.

All ready to head into the cave!

Although we didn't catch any L. nivalis during mist
netting, we did find this dead one in the cave,
proving that they do roost there.

Our campsite at the mouth of
the cave.

Rattlesnake in the path!

Tarantula

A flowering agave plant, which
will be the subject of part of my
PhD research.

Agaves attempt to reproduce sexually by shooting up a tall flowering stalk like the one shown here; the flowers can then be pollinated by bats. However, because growing a tall stalk requires a lot of energy (a.k.a. sugar) if an agave flowers the sugar content of its “heart” decreases. Therefore, in order to maintain a high yield of sugar to make mezcal and other products, people cut off the flowering stalk as it begins to grow. As you can imagine this can be bad for bats since it eliminates their food source. Also, while this practice increases the short-term gain for the farmer, it forces the agave plant to reproduce asexually (cloning itself) in a last ditch effort to leave descendants. In the long run this can (and has within the blue agaves (Agave tequilana) used to produce tequila commercially) lead to drastically decreased genetic diversity and increased susceptibility to diseases and pests. I am interested in understanding how farmers and communities cultivate agaves and harvest wild agaves, and if their practices can be expanded to include bat-friendly methods (such as allowing some of the plants to flower and provide food for the bats). 

The leaves (hojas) of this agave species are thick
and spiky!

The stalk (quiote) of this agave
species is quite thick!

Such a beautiful landscape. Notice several tall flowering agaves, food for the nectarivorous (nectar-
feeding) bat species. There were A LOT more in the distance!

Josefo and I also went to Saltillo, a (somewhat smaller) city about an hour from Monterrey, to visit an ejido (an area of communal land used for agriculture) that is currently developing an agave cultivation program to provide economic development opportunities for the community through selling agave products in the nearby city. We plan to monitor these agaves for bat feeding activity. If we can show that the bats are feeding on these agaves (which they probably are since one of their main roosting caves is within nightly commuting distance) then we could approach the community to incorporate bat-friendly agave management methods into their agave program, and ESHAC could seek support from larger conservation organizations such as Bat Conservation International to develop a program with the community that would benefit both the bats and the people. This visit was extremely exciting for me since this is the kind of work I’m interested in doing and the kind of thing I’d like to further investigate for my dissertation. I’m really excited to see where this could lead!

Out in the field.

Prairie dog on guard!

Another beautiful, yet different, landscape, this time a grassland area.

A pila, or pit, where the ejido members dry the
leaves of the agaves to be used as fodder/forage
(forrage) for livestock.

The pila is next to the area of wild agaves that the ejido members harvest.

We also took a trip to Sabinas, a town in Coahuila about four hours away, to meet with the managers of the Protected Area where we will be doing our bat training workshop next week. We’ll be spending a week in the town conducting the training, so this coming week will include working on making the materials for the workshop. Also this week we’re planning to either go into the mountains nearby to do a cave survey for bats, or go to some agave fields in the area to do agave counts and species identification. Just like the ejido outside Saltillo, this area is also a possible site for my own research, so I’m excited to see the area.

The next four weeks will be busy busy busy and I’m really excited to see more of the area and do more bat work! I’ll try to keep the blog updated regularly but no promises given how busy we’ll be. I hope you have enjoyed reading this first post and hope you’ll come back for future posts!