Leaving for Ecuador! (January 2010)

Saludos,

So as many of you know,

I am leaving the country this Sunday (Jan 10) for 5 months of research and teaching in Ecuador.

The first half of my trip I will be at Reserva Los Cedros (http://reservaloscedros.org) working on the research for my dissertation (http://ethnobotanicalresearch.blogspot.com).

I am using a group of mushroom-mimicking orchids to link volatile chemistry, genetics, and insect behavior as co-creative processes in the distribution, diversity, and evolution of this group of enigmatic plants.

While that may sound somewhat lofty and esoteric, I can assure you that my feet will be planted firmly in the mud during those couple of months! (The cloud forest we are working in gets 3x as much rain as Eugene!)

The second half of my trip will be helping to teach a neotropical ecology field course with students from the U of O (http://biology.uoregon.edu/neotropicalecology).

Additionally, I will find some time to adventure on my own, particularly gathering information and photos for the second edition of my book on the common plants of the cloud forest (http://plantsofmindo.blogspot.com).

Thanks for your continued interest,

and may your winter and spring be filled with brilliant adventures of your own.

Until Ecuador!

con amor,

Tobias


Dracula lafluerii