April Field Trip to Brijuni
Fieldwork season has officially begun! On Monday, we (Jelena, Marko B. and Lina) set off to Brijuni National Park for our first field trip of the year. We’re staying on the island of Veli Brijun, from where we’ll travel to Mali Brijun, Galija, Vrsar, Obljak and Gaz with the help of the Brijuni National Park’s professional crew.
Even though we were welcomed by rain, that didn’t stop us from visiting our first location, Mali Brijun. While our ants aren’t big fans of rain, we decided not to let it bother us and got to work. Luckily, we were looking for locations for setting up our data loggers for measuring and recording temperature, and not ants.
The second day had even more gifts for us – rain was accompanied by a strong “jugo” wind, so we stayed on the island of Veli Brijun. Since data loggers are made to endure long periods in the field, there was no reason to wait for better weather to deploy them. We’ve checked out new locations for thermal and behavioural research, which awaits us in May, and visited some well-known meadows from the last field trip. Interestingly, some Messor wasmanni colonies were brave enough to be active in the rain and relatively low temperatures, but at the end of the day, most of the animals we encountered were the seagulls.
In the next few days, we plan to deploy data loggers on the rest of the islands, test out the protocol for sampling thermal heterogeneity, and refine our protocols for the upcoming field season in May. Here’s to better weather, an abundance of ants, and a good fieldwork season!
