Postcard from the Treetop
ED BASHAM, Ph.D., Stengl-Wyer Postdoctoral Scholar
At the end of 2024, I spent four months with a team of student volunteers in a tropical forest in the Central African country of Gabon, climbing 30 meters or more in dozens of trees to collect frogs.
As you go from the ground to the canopy, forest habitats change dramatically, allowing them to host complex interacting communities. Yet, because it’s so difficult and time intensive to get up into the trees, our understanding of where species live and how they interact is mostly two dimensional. At its most basic, I’m trying to answer the question: where are the frogs? How do these communities change across the vertical gradient? This will help us better predict how they might react to changing climate, habitat destruction and infectious diseases.
“It’s all so beautifully wild, and I love the sense of adventure it gives me to work in the rainforest.”
It’s hard work: long days of hauling ropes and gear across rough terrain; hoisting yourself up high into the forest; analyzing samples; fending off biting insects; and overcoming illnesses.
But, you have to simply crack on and get stuck in. One moment you’re ducking and diving through the vegetation and then you come across an absolutely gigantic, 50-meter-tall tree and you feel this natural awe. There are monkeys and hornbills and all sorts of crazy creatures, some unknown to science. It’s all so beautifully wild, and I love the sense of adventure it gives me to work in the rainforest.