LSU Researcher Discovers New Bird During Expedition To Peru

Source: Louisiana State University
Date: July 13, 2004

Published by Science Daily
Science Daily — He saw it. He heard it. But he needed proof.


For almost four years, LSU research associate Daniel Lane was haunted by the memory of an unusual, yellowish bird. He and an associate caught a glimpse of itwhile bird watching in Peru. They even recorded some of its song. Right away, they knew it was something new. Something different.

Now, thanks to Lane, a specimen of that bird previously unknown to science rests in a Lima museum and it will soon bear a name of Lane's choosing. As the discoverer of what could be a new species or, perhaps, a new genus, Lane will also be the first to author a scientific description of the bird.

The process will take some time, but, for someone who says his interest in birds began when he was "three or four," it's all a labor of love.

Lane, a New Jersey native who earned his master's from LSU in 1999, says his quest for the mystery bird dates back to 2000. As a part-time international bird-watching tour guide for WINGS Tours, Lane was one of the leaders of a group near the Manu National Park in Peru. He and fellow guide Gary Rosenberg, also an LSU graduate, spotted the bird along one of the park's major roads. Unfortunately, almost as soon as it was there, it was gone and no one else in the group had seen it.

The bird remained in Lane's mind as he returned to lead tours in the area for the next few years, but it didn't reappear.

"After three years, I was starting to doubt my sanity," said Lane.
Then, last year, the pair finally saw it again, and this time, the rest of the group saw it as well. They were also able to make a lengthy recording of its song, a critical part of ornithological study. Nevertheless, they were unable to obtain a specimen and, therefore, remained reticent about announcing their find.

Determined to obtain the proof he needed of his find, Lane returned to the region last November and played the recording of the bird's song. His attempt to attract his quarry failed and he once again went home empty-handed. Then, last month, Lane and some cohorts were in Peru conducting other field work when they made spur-of-the-moment plans to give it one more try.

After obtaining permission from the proper authorities, Lane and his group set off on their mission. On the morning of June 9, the playing of the taped song worked and the bird appeared, coming to rest in some nearby bamboo, just off the road. After observing and playing "cat and mouse" with the bird for almost an hour, Lane finally got his specimen.

Lane explained that the bird is likely a tanager, a type of songbird found mostly in tropical regions of the Americas. He describes it as having a short, bushy crest and olive back, wings and tail that contrast with a burnt orange crown. For now, the specimen is in the keeping of the National Museum in Lima where it will become the "type," the specimen on which the species' description is based and against which all others will be compared. Eventually, it will be sent to Lane so that he can write the scientific description and record his observations and its DNA will be tested to determine its specific relationship to other birds.

However long it takes, Lane is understanding of the pace of science. He's been in a similar situation before. In 1996, while on another expedition in Peru, he discovered the Scarlet-banded Barbet, a small, colorful toucan-like bird. And besides, he says, it feels good to know that he was sane after all.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Louisiana State University.

Where Is The World's Greatest Biodiversity? Smithsonian Scientists Find The Answer Is A Question Of Scale

Source: Smithsonian Institution
Date: January 25, 2002
Published by Science Daily


Science Daily — Amazonia represents the quintessence of biodiversity the richest ecosystem on earth. Yet a study by Smithsonian scientists, published this week in the journal Science, shows that differences in species composition of tropical forests are greater over distance in Panama than in Amazonia. The finding also challenges recent models proposed to explain forest species composition.

The research team, led by Richard Condit of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute's Center for Tropical Forest Science, compared data from single-hectare (2.47 acre) tropical forest plots near the Panama Canal with plots of the same size in the Yasuni National Park of Ecuador and in Peru's Manu Biosphere Reserve. After identifying, tagging and measuring more than 50,000 individual trees with stems of ten centimeters or more in diameter in all three forests, they observed that a wide swath of the western Amazon has a forest in which the species change very little over distances of more than 1000 kilometers. The tree species counts in any one locale are high, but each locale turns out to be much like the others in terms of species composition.

In contrast, forests on the Isthmus of Panama change dramatically in tree species composition from one site to the next. Forests just 50 kilometers apart in Panama are less alike than forests 1,400 kilometers apart in the western Amazon. As a result of such high landscape variation, parts of Panama have as many or even more tree species than parts of Amazonia. "Ecologists have a technical term for landscape variation in forest types: beta-diversity," Condit explained. "Beta-diversity is high when forests change a lot over short distances as in Panama but low when forests are similar over long distances as in Ecuador and Peru." The unique aspect of this research by the Smithsonian team, including colleagues from France, the United States and South America, was a precise mathematical prediction of beta-diversity that helped them pinpoint its cause. A theory for beta-diversity had heretofore eluded ecologists.

"The Smithsonian theory is based on a basic ecological premise called the 'neutral theory,'" Condit said, "but adds to it the simple yet crucial observation that trees do not generally spread their seeds very far a factor which tends to enhance beta-diversity."

The Science report provides one of the most precise tests of the neutral theory yet published.

The team concludes that the neutral theory cannot account for beta-diversity in tropical forests, and they discount the importance of random events in establishing what grows there. Instead, Panama's high beta-diversity must be due to the abrupt variation in rainfall across the Central American isthmus, from the ever-wet Caribbean shoreline to the dry Pacific slope.
Forests across western Amazonia, however, were more uniform in species composition than the theory allowed, a surprising result.

"Explanations for this uniformity will require deeper understanding of how different tropical trees are from one another," said co-author and Smithsonian scientist Egbert G. Leigh, Jr., who devised the mathematical formula that led to the undermining of the neutral theory.
"More tedious field work, it seems, is in store," Leigh concluded.

###

The Center for Tropical Forest Science, established within the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in 1990, is a consortium of forestry agencies, universities, research institutes and nongovernmental organizations around the world, each managing or involved in one or more of 17 forest dynamics plots in 14 different countries. In addition to monitoring the trees, the center sponsors training programs, scientific meetings, and communications between sites through a newsletter and Web site at http://www.ctfs.si.edu/.

The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, headquartered in Panama City, Republic of Panama, is one of the world's leading centers for basic research on the ecology, behavior and evolution of tropical organisms. More information is available at http://www.stri.org/.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Smithsonian Institution.

Peru's Nasca Lines Point To Water Sources, Suggest UMass Researchers

Source: University Of Massachusetts, Amherst
Date: December 1, 2000
Published by Science Daily

AMHERST, Mass. - The ancient "Nasca lines" created on the desert floor by native peoples in Peru thousands of years ago may not just be works of art, according to a team of scientists from the University of Massachusetts. The team, which includes hydrogeologist Stephen B. Mabee and archeologist Donald Proulx, suggests that some of the mysterious lines may in fact mark underground sources of water. The research project is detailed in the December issue of Discover magazine. The team also includes independent scholar David Johnson, an adjunct research associate in the department of anthropology at UMass, and geosciences graduate students Jenna Levin and Gregory Smith.

The lines were constructed in the desert in southwestern Peru about 1,500-2,000 years ago by the Nasca culture, prior to the invasion of the Incas. The lines, which are etched into the surface of the desert by removing surface pebbles to reveal the lighter sand beneath, depict birds and mammals, including a hummingbird, a monkey, and a man, as well as zigzags, spirals, triangles, and other geometric figures. Called "geoglyphs," the elaborate figures are located about 250 miles south of Lima, and measure up to 1.2 miles in length. Their meaning has been the object of centuries of speculation. Some experts have hypothesized that the figures had ceremonial or religious functions, or served as astronomical calendars. But a slate of scientific tests has led the UMass team to theorize that at least some of the geometric shapes mark underground water.

"Ancient inhabitants may have marked the location of their groundwater supply distribution system with geoglyphs because the springs and seeps associated with the faults provided a more reliable and, in some instances, a better-quality water source than the rivers. We're testing this scientifically," said Mabee. "The spatial coincidence between the geoglyphs and groundwater associated with underground faults in the bedrock offers an intriguing alternative to explain the function of some of the geoglyphs."

Proulx, who has studied the region for decades, notes that the symbols on the biomorphs (figures of animals, plants, and humans) and on Nasca pottery are almost identical. "There are representations of natural forces," he says, "Not deities in the Western sense, but powerful forces of sky and earth and water, whom they needed to propitiate for water and a good harvest."

The team has studied the drawings and taken water samples during three separate journeys to Peru, over the past five years. The research has been funded by a University of Massachusetts Healy grant, the National Geographic Society, and the H. John Heinz Charitable Trust.

"So far, the tests indicate that the underground faults provide a source of reliable water to local inhabitants. The water, in comparison with available river water, is better-quality in terms of pH levels, magnesium, calcium, chloride and sulfate concentrations," Mabee said.

Proulx carried out an archaeological survey of more than 128 sites in the drainage area, in conjunction with the geological research. His discoveries provided data for another piece of the puzzle many archaeological sites were constructed near water-bearing faults and used this important secondary source of water.

The team was able to map the water's sources, and found that in at least five cases, the wells and aquifers corresponded with geoglyphs and archaeological sites. "They always seem to go together," said Mabee.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by University Of Massachusetts, Amherst.

New Archaeological Evidence Illuminates Inca Sun-Worship Ritual

Source: University Of Illinois At Chicago
Date: September 30, 1998
Published by Science Daily

Science Daily — University of Illinois at Chicago archaeologist Brian Bauer and colleagues have unearthed artifacts from sites in South America that shed light on how the Inca organized their sun-worship rituals and how they physically kept track of the sun's movements.

According to Bauer, "many scholars of Latin American antiquity believe that the Inca built large stone pillars to record the sun's horizon location at the June and December solstices, but archaeologists had not found physical evidence of the pillars and there had been no detailed investigation into the organization of the solstice rituals" -- until now.

During a survey of pre-Hispanic sites on the Island of the Sun, in Lake Titicaca, Bauer and colleagues David Dearborn of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and graduate student Matthew Seddon of the University of Chicago discovered the remains of two stone pillars. They also found a large platform area just outside the walls of a sanctuary on the island.

Archaeological and astronomical research, which the team presents in the Sept. 24 issue of Latin American Antiquity, suggests the Inca used the site to support the elites' claim to power through elaborate solar rituals, perhaps using two-tiered worship.

In the early 15th century the Inca empire -- the largest state to develop in the Americas -- expanded into the Lake Titicaca region in modern-day Peru and Bolivia and usurped the Island of the Sun from local control. The island and a sacred rock, which locals believed was the birthplace of the sun, had been the focus of worship for centuries, said Bauer. Under the Inca it became one of the most important pilgrimage centers in South America.

"The Inca nobility, as well as members of the general populace, journeyed to the island to worship and make offerings in a sanctuary plaza next to the sacred rock," said Bauer.

The team's research indicates that, on the June solstice, the Inca king and high priests of the empire assembled in a small plaza beside the sacred rock to witness the dramatic setting of the sun between the stone pillars. Their findings also indicate that, as the elites paid homage to the sun from within the sanctuary, lower-class pilgrims observed the event from a second platform outside the sanctuary wall. From the perspective of the lower-class pilgrims, the sun set between the stone pillars and directly over the ruling elite, who called themselves the children of the sun.

"We're proposing that the platform outside the sanctuary walls represents a segregation of the elite and non-elite classes of sun worship," said Bauer. "This adds a new dimension to the practice of the solar cult that was not distinctly recorded in accounts of similar state rituals in the imperial capital, Cusco.

"While both groups participated in solar worship, the non-elites simultaneously offered respect to the sun and the children of that deity. This physical segregation emphasized that the Inca alone had direct access to the powers of the sun," he said.

The researchers illustrate the layout of the Inca structures in a map. The two stone pillars were erected on a natural ridge 600 meters to the northwest of the sacred rock. The plaza adjacent to the sacred rock was rectangular in shape, roughly 80 meters long and 35 meters wide, with the long axis pointing in the direction of the June solstice sunset. A sanctuary wall to the south and east blocked access to the site, which could only be reached through a gate. The secondary plaza, accessible to all pilgrims, was just outside the sanctuary wall and about 250 meters southeast of the sacred rock plaza.

Bauer said the remnants of stone pillars are similar to pillars around Cusco, which were described by several Spanish chroniclers of the 16th century. Those pillars were large enough to be seen against the setting sun at a distance of 15 kilometers. One such set of pillars marked where the sun sets at the June solstice, which is the northernmost point at which the sun crosses the! horizon. Unfortunately, said Bauer, a combination of post-conquest looting and recent urban growth in the Cusco valley has destroyed the area where the Cusco pillars once stood.

Bauer and Dearborn's research on the Island of the Sun is a continuation of their long-standing joint research on Inca astronomy. They are the authors of Astronomy and Empire in the Ancient Andes (University of Texas Press), which examines the origins and organization of Inca astronomy in Cusco.

"The findings from the Island of the Sun is the first discovery and documentation of similar pillars outside the imperial capital of the Inca," said Bauer.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by University Of Illinois At Chicago

Deep in the Jungle

Published by TRIBUNE-REVIEW

By Bill Zlatos
Sunday, April 22, 2007

Boating on the Manu River in southwestern Peru, I brace a lunch of pork and spaghetti against a strong gust. Suddenly, my guide gives me an incredible birthday gift.
He peers through his binoculars and points to the left bank more than 200 feet away.

"Jaguar!" he yells.

For many wildlife lovers, Peru's Manu Biosphere in the Amazon River Basin offers a diversity of plant and animal life one can only expect to see on cable TV nature shows. Roughly the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island, the area consists of the Manu National Park and the Manu Reserved Zone, which tourists, led by guides, may visit.

The region is home to 10 percent of the world's birds -- about 1,000 species -- and 10 percent of its plant life. It has 13 species of monkeys. Among the 13 species designated as "threatened" are ocelots and black caimans -- a kind of crocodile. And, of course, my jaguar.

The weeklong trip offers the chance to go deeper into the more isolated areas of the park and see much of it.

Take a bus to Manu and a plane back to Cusco. It costs more, but shaves a day of travel off the trip. And tourists get a spectacular aerial view of the jungle canopy and more time to explore quaint Cusco, the ancient Incan capital of Peru.

I join 10 other tourists from around the world on our bus, which leaves Cusco, follows the Urubamba River across the Sacred Valley and climbs a dirt road into the Andes.

After crossing a 13,000-foot pass, we stop to observe the chullpas, pre-Incan graves. About 5 feet high, these circular stone tombs once held the mummies of the royal family buried in fetal positions. The gold and silver treasure stashed with them has long since been plundered.

An obelisk marks the entrance to misty Manu at Acjanacu. We descend into the dwarf forest, the cloud forest and then to our lodge in the lowland rain forest. The lodges on this trip are spartan by American standards -- screened cabins with little more than twin cots for furniture and separate kitchen, shower and toilet facilities. At least it discourages more tourists from coming.

Wildlife abounds

We rise at 5 a.m. the next day and hike to a camouflaged blind to observe the Andean cock-of-the-rocks. The male birds preen in their reddish orange plumage with black tails and red crests to attract the females. The males woo the ladies in their guttural voices. After breakfast, most of the group rides mountain bikes for two hours. David, an architect from Switzerland, and I opt for a nature hike. We see brilliantly colored butterflies, eagles, a swallowtail kite, white-collared swifts, tree ferns, and a wasp nest hanging in the bamboo.

That afternoon, we launch two rafts on the Alta Madre de Dios River. Water from the Class I and II rapids splashes over the bow. With the guide's permission, I jump in to cool off. Most of my companions follow suit. We might as well swim now before we reach the Manu River and its crocodiles, piranhas, electric eels and snakes.

We observe animals during hikes in the jungle, from towers or from a 25-foot-long motorized boat with a bright blue canopy. Our pilot expertly guides the boat through a maze of logs lodged in the river. Sometimes, turtles, herons, egrets and other birds perch on the limbs.

Close encounters

On our third day, we awaken at 5 a.m. and boat 15 minutes on the Alta Madre de Dios River to a rocky island 300 feet from shore. We sit on inch-thick mattresses and face a clearing on the bank. Birds soon flock in the trees above a 50-foot-high clay lick. Parrots and parakeet first swoop down, then macaws.

They peck at the clay for minerals that counteract the toxins in the unripe fruit they eat. As if at a deli, the colorful birds patiently await their turn.

Later that morning, the boat pulls ashore where a stream joins the main river. We climb 75 feet, and I plop into a pool fed by a hot spring. The water is 105 degrees, but I soon get used to it.

On my descent, however, I hear a shriek. Heidi Coyle, a tourist from St. John's in the Virgin Islands, is standing in the stream and trying to balance herself on a rock when she notices a snake a foot away. Our guide identifies it as a poisonous coral snake.

"I was very scared," she said later. "I was looking around because where there's one, there's more."

The 3-foot snake eventually swims away, ending our snake encounters for the rest of the trip.

We ride the boat for five hours. Egrets, herons and cormorants stand on rocky islands, the banks or in river shallows. Vultures soar overhead or flock ominously in trees. Flood-tossed trees stripped of bark and blanched by lichen clog the river or are strewn ashore. And wild cane flourishes on the banks like the dandelions in my backyard.

Suddenly, we spot a dead white caiman, upside down and lodged in the branches of a tree stuck in the Manu River. Three vultures perch atop the 10-foot-long body until we pull alongside it.

Treetop view

Back in camp, I go into the jungle on a canopy tour. We climb a series of five towers linked by inch-thick cables. The purpose ostensibly is to observe wildlife from the treetops. But we see no critters as we zoom as far as 300 feet among the ivy like modern-day Tarzans and Janes. I even practice my Tarzan yell.

Most of our success in spotting wildlife is because of the skill of our guides, Alvaro Zamora and Abdel Martinez. They are adept at following the tracks or slightest movements of animals and pointing them out to us.

We stalk a wild pig, rustling and grunting down the trail. For a fleeting moment, I make out its silhouette. We see a poison frog, used by Indians for arrows and darts, inside the hollow of a tree. Of more concern are the inch-long giant ants, whose bites scare even the natives. The giant ant nests and those of termites and wasps hang on trees throughout the jungle.

The jungle is not as hot as I expect but noisier. The air is filled with the chirping of the cicada, the howling of monkeys and the squawking of parrots and macaws.

During our hikes, light filters through the dense foliage, casting mottled shadows on a jungle floor of matted leaves. We enjoy watching the spider, squirrel and brown capuchin monkeys swinging from tree to tree, sometimes baby in tow.

On one occasion, we observe some spider monkeys high in the fig and sava trees. Disapproving our presence, the monkeys shower us with leaves and limbs. We do not budge. Then they defecate on us, scoring a direct hit on a tourist. That gets us moving.

One of my favorite Amazon Basin animals is the giant river otter. We visit them by flatboat on Salvador Lake, an oxbow lake and the biggest one in Manu. Oxbow lakes are formed by a change in the course of a river.

We eventually spot a family of six otters, each about four and half feet long, as entertaining as circus clowns. They play or fight with each other, then dive into the lake and surface, clutching and crunching fish, bones and all. They are absolutely mesmerizing.

In addition to the animals, the guides point out a wide variety of plant life. We see walking palms, trees whose roots move toward sunlight. I am amazed at a giant fig tree. It stands on a root system of tentacles 25 feet tall and spreading out 100 feet in diameter.

The leche leche tree grows about 130 feet high, and its flared trunk stretches 10 feet across. On another hike, the guide stops to show us a cocoa tree, the source of chocolate. I kiss it.

Tribal lodge

Tourists are few in Manu, but we visit a lodge of eight thatched huts of the Matchiguenga, the biggest Indian tribe in this region. I am told there are three kinds of Indians in Peru: those who have assimilated the white man's ways; those who have some contact with whites, but still follow the traditional way of life; and "the naked people," who live isolated in the jungle.

The leader of this lodge, Carlos, is of the second type. He demonstrates his skill with the bow and arrow, and we tourists take turns with the bow and later play soccer with our hosts.

At the lodge, I buy two necklaces made of seeds, the tusk of a wild pig and the skull of a pacu, a fish related to the piranha, for my son and nephew. I also buy them handmade bows and arrows with feathers from a variety of birds.

Imagine my sweet talking to get bows and arrows through four airports on the way home.

After a week in the jungle, most of my group returns by boat down the Manu River to a grassy airstrip guarded by ducks. On the way there, my eyes glaze over by the abundance of wildlife I've seen and, imagining there's little new to see, I leave my camera in my pack rather than around my neck. All the better to steady my lunch against the breeze blowing into our faces.

It is about 1:30 p.m. when Abdel spots the jaguar. He stands -- fortunately for us -- in a clearing on the river bank where he probably had just quenched his thirst. His sleek tawny body, about six feet long, ripples with muscles.

In just a matter of seconds, the cat lumbers back to the jungle -- indifferent to and undaunted by us. The brush and wild cane soon blend into the natural camouflage of his fur as we fumble for our cameras. David snaps the only photograph among us, but by now the jaguar's body blends into the jungle, making him virtually invisible.

It marks only the second jaguar Abdel has seen all year, and it happens on my birthday.

"Thank you, Peru," I say aloud.

Ancient Peruvian metallurgy studied

Published by Science Daily

EDMONTON, Alberta, April 19 (UPI) -- A Canadian-led study has reported the first scientific evidence that ancient Peruvian civilizations in the central Andes Mountains smelted metals.

The study by the University of Alberta's Colin Cooke and colleagues also determined that a tax imposed on local people by ancient Inca rulers might have forced a switch from production of copper to silver.

The researchers said prior evidence of metal smelting was limited mainly to the existence of metal artifacts dating to about 1,000 A.D. and the Wari Empire that preceded the Incas. The new evidence emerged from a study of metallurgical air pollutants released from ancient furnaces during the smelting process and deposited in lake sediments.

By analyzing metals in the sediments, the researchers recreated a 1,000-year history of metal smelting in the area, predating Francisco Pizarro and his Spanish conquistadors by 600 years.

The findings suggest smelters in the Morococha region of Peru switched from producing copper to silver about the time Inca rulers imposed a tax, payable in silver, on local populations.

The study is scheduled for the May 15 issue of the American Chemical Society's semi-monthly journal Environmental Science & Technology.

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