Tropical Ecology and Conservation: Belize, Winterim 2020 (2020)

Over the 2020 Winterim semester, seven SUNY Potsdam students participated in a fourteen-day field course in Belize. Students designed and conducted independent original research projects within the tropical evergreen rain forests at the Belize Foundation for Research and Environmental Education, a remote biological field station located in southern Belize. Different panels on this poster presentation highlight the results of these projects, which included investigations 1) comparing dragonfly diversity at multiple aquatic sites in tropical forest; 2) assessing insect abundance and diversity at multiple levels in the forest structure; 3) comparing bat species diversity near water and within a tropical garden area using a bat detector; 4) comparing fish communities in habitats of the Bladen River and in smaller forest streams; 5) surveying vertebrates along forest trails at baited and un–baited sites using camera traps; and 6) surveying scorpion abundance at various sites in the area.