In addition to the latest in computer technology, tropical biologists are eagerly adopting the latest in genomic research. In fact, the forensic experts of TV’s popular Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) might soon be rivaled by those at “TSI”—Tropical Scene Investigation. Tropical biologists are beginning to use the same genetic-fingerprinting techniques to identify new species that CSI sleuths use to nab criminals. Individual insect parts, feathers, scales, toenail-clippings, and other minute tissue samples can be analyzed to pinpoint the genetic identity of an animal, said Pedro Le--n, a tropical biologist, at the OTS symposium. With social insects, which live in interdependent colonies, “this is quite nice, because you can sample a few animals without being concerned about major impact on the population,” said Le--n, a University of Costa Rica professor and former chair of the OTS board of directors. This kind of data will enable researchers to identify how individual animals and plants are related to one another, and how they spread. The genetic data can also help organize the multitude of species on the phylogenetic tree of life by comparing genetic data among them.

From top: Las Cruces: the place for dining at dusk Stepping lightly: a leaf-footed bug Hot stuff: the flower of a torch ginger in Las Cruces Yellow means caution: the eyelash viper, one of the most poisonous snakes in Costa Rica

Perhaps most dramatic, said Le--n, will be the “shotgun approach” to genomic identification of organisms. Scientists can take a soil sample and isolate the DNA of a multitude of unknown species. By analyzing the genes contained in the DNA, eventually the scientists will be able to determine the identities of the unknown organisms.

The necessarily abbreviated rubber boot camps held during OTS’s fortieth anniversary celebration provided a tantalizing taste of the experiences of undergraduate and graduate students who attend summer- and semester-long field courses in tropical biology and ecology sponsored by OTS at all three of its stations.

For biology major and Duke senior Jennifer Rainey, the OTS tropical biology course she took in the summer of 2002 was a rigorous lesson in the realities of field research. As her independent-study project, she had chosen to record how white-faced capuchin monkeys at the Palo Verde station care for their young. Little did she suspect that the monkeys would be so, well, active.

Reflecting on the eight-hour days of chasing after monkeys, she declares that it “was really fun and grueling at the same time. At Palo Verde, it gets up to a hundred and twelve degrees, sometimes. So, we’d be out in long pants, long-sleeve shirts running after monkeys through acacia trees and thorns, and it was a mess. You’re not reading about someone who had to work really hard to follow monkeys and get this data—you’re the one getting this data. You’re the one who’s picking the ants off your arms. You’re the one who’s driving yourself out of bed at 4:30.”

Like her fellow students, however, Rainey learned that the effort yielded the kind of immersion in nature that forges scientists out of students. “It’s really neat to be in the park and watching how all the different organisms interact with each other.”

The course crystallized Christopher Martin’s lifelong interest in biology. “I’ve always wanted to be a biologist since I was two years old catching tadpoles,” says Martin, also a senior. He says he was worried that his experience in the wilds of Costa Rica might prove too grueling, that “maybe it’ll be too hot or whatever, but none of that’s true. I’m still a hard-core biologist.”

So hard-core, in fact, that for his research project, Martin explored, with painstaking care, the feeding habits of the ant lion—a peculiar insect that lurks at the bottom of a tiny pit it has dug, waiting for ants to drop in for dinner. “I wanted to look at what makes an ant lion most effective at catching its prey,” he says. “And the main thing I did was to go around with a tweezers and drop an ant in each pit, record whether the ant escaped or was eaten, and then measure the diameter of the pit to get an idea of how big the pit was and measure the size of the ant lion.” While his results did not prove any dramatic theory of ant-lion behavior, they did give him a fascinating glimpse into a peculiar corner of nature.

Martin’s project also gave him some modest notoriety as a talented imitator of the insects—a not-ready-for-Vegas act that involves opening his mouth wide in a perfect imitation of an ant lion waiting for its prey.

For Hartshorn, and many other tropical scientists like him, the education and research afforded by La Selva are only part of the explanation for the lure of the tropics. Thirty years ago, while living in the single crude cabin, La Selva’s only facility at the time, he decided that the rain forest was a place he had to make his home. “I don’t know quite how to explain it,” he says. “For some reason, the La Selva forest just captured me. I became immediately enamored.” And so, he hopes, will countless future generations of students, scientists, and political leaders who hold the fate of the tropical rain forest in their hands.