My Page of old, discarded ideas. Who knows when I may undiscard them

Original Plan #1

Our original plan was to attempt to divide the rainforest into different strata, and then find ways to monitor each layer as a whole as an indicator. Because of the amount of interaction between strata, and the complexity of each strata, that idea was trashed as being just as difficult and non-effective as montioring the "whole" rainforest. However, I did manage to get a decent amount of information out of it... so here it is.

*The understory is the area between the ground and canopy of the rainforest. It is generally hot and humid, has a wide variety of flowering plants, some monkeys, and a lot birds, butterflys, and other random flying things.
For some examples of understory flutterflys, plants, and other insecty things, visit Dr. Blythe's Rainforest Education web site
*According to PBS's Science in the Rainforest, the understory only gets 2-5% of the sunlight that the canopy gets. Because of the high plant population, and the lack of air circulation by wind, many understory plants rely solely on insects to pollinate.
Fauna:
*Gorillas don't live in the understory, but they go there to feed and sleep(Thinkquest Project Rainforest)

Seriously Trying Now
Bird Data: (understory populations)
Cocha Cashu
Insectivore - 38 species, 11.5% of the bird population
Fruit eaters - 7 species, 2.1% of the population
omniverous- 5 species, 1.5% of population
According to data from a different part of the same book (on Terra Firme rainforest, pg 225):
*Understory birds are mainly insectivorous
*In the Manaus area, approx. 31% of all birds banded belonged to mixed-species insectivorous flocks: groups of birds with 8-13 core species that together defend territories for a period of years.

Personal Reaction:
Attempting to stratify the rainforest fauna on vertical parameters isn't a good idea. Many animals move freely from one strata to another, and there is also a strong amount of disagreement of what various strata locations are. For instance, one book I referenced said that the understory was the area directly above the ground, starting at the first tree branchs. Another book referred to the understory at 50-60 feet above the ground. There's a big difference there.

List of species found in the "understory"
In Cocha Cashu - from pg 317 of 4 neotropical rainforests:
Marsupialia
Didelphidae
Micoureus cinerea
Marmosops noctivaga
Philander opossum


Primates
Cebidae
Aotus trivirgatus
Callicebus moloch
Cebus apella
Cebus albifrons

Callitrichidae
Cebuella pygmaea
Saguinus imperator

Rodentia
Sciuridae
Sciurus spadiceus
Sciurus ignitus
Sciurus sandborni
Muridae
Oligoryzomys microtis
Oecomys superans
Oecomys bicolor

Echimyidae
Echimys sp.
Mesomys hispidus

Other things to look at: (if I can find info in English)
Nepstad Report - something to do with how much land it requires for a viable pathc of rainforest to survive. Info on Costa Rican rainforests... apparently they've put some sort of rainforest protection thing into effect... making large amounts of the rainforest into national parks and protecting them that way
Some information about monitoring the rainforest:
Amazon Life -Project SIWAM

Actually trying to sum up the understory (sorry this is so disorganized)
*The understory's enviormental conditions are: humid, not a whole lot of sunlight, and warm
*The understory has a large amount of insects, rodents, and bird, and a mid-sized population of larger mammals. The "largest" mamamals generally found in the understory of a Brazilian rainforest are carnivorous cats - ocassionally jaguars. (I'm not sure if chimps live in South America. If they do, they can supposedly be found in the understory too.) *Biomass wise, the understory does not have as much animal life as other stratas, especially because the animals tend to be relatively small.

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Second Project: Not Quite as Unsuccessful

Our second "project" was designed to determine what we meant as montioring. It wasn't entirely successful, but here's the information I got from it.

*One possible way of measuring biodiversity is through satellite images. This website talks about measuring the biodiversity of an Indian forest through satellite images. I'm not sure I understand how they got their basic data on biodiversity though.
*This is another satellite image, this time of cattle farms near the city of Brasilia in the Brazilian state of Acre
*This paper is awesome!!! It explains how the Smithsonian Institution Monitoring and Assessment of Biodiversity Program evaluated the levels of biodiversity in Gabon, Africa. First, they selected target areas that they thought would represent the various parts of the region. Then, they took old studies and organized the animals that had been seen in those areas. To cement the process, they then conducted field studies in the various areas, using teams they have specially trained. AWESOME!!!

What I've figured out for today (10/3/02): What do we mean by monitoring? I think it means that we need to have a concrete way of collecting information on the animal populations of an area. One way I would suggest is to ask the natives to help. However, it would be important to train them in the way we want the information collected. I also think it is necessary to use satellite images to ensure that the plant life is not being destroyed, as that would destroy the animals. My current "plan of action" would be to:
1. Use current data to develop a database of species known to be in the rainforest. (Probably divide the rainforest into three different sections.)
2. Train rainforest natives on how we wish a on-site species evaluation to be done.
3. Get a current idea of the forest coverage by satellite.
4. Once a year, collect and process data from natives.
5. figure out what to do when something goes wrong.
This solution is somewhat old fashioned... I still think we would be better off using technology to monitor the rainforest, but I'm having trouble coming up with ideas for that. Obviously the water should be monitored for chemicals, pH, etc. etc., and same for the soil. One idea might be to try and use some sort of radio that can be put into food. Oh... what if we could make one that could monitor health, and then make sure we put it in a female. That could tell reproductive rates of certain animals. Also, it would tell when one animal ate another. How expensive and practical is it though?

It might also be possible to use some sort of video monitoring, although that would be difficult and complicated. (Do you need someone watching the videos 24 hours a day?? If not, how do you get good information off of it?

Sorry about the rather random brainstorming... I still really think the food web idea would be good if we could make it work. Some way to monitor... oh. Could we montior the amount of decomposition going on?? B/c if we can monitor the rate nutrients are being decomposed and then the rate they go back into the systems, then we have the rate of life living and dying. Again, it wouldn't do much for an individual species, but it would help to point out major problems. If more biomass is being broken down than is being used, more things are dying than should be.

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