I spent three weeks at the edge of the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil, splitting my time between climate research and photography.
This is the house I stayed in. Tanguro is far away enough from light pollution for the stars and Milky Way to pop out even before the sun had fully set.
The chef, Dona Lucia, kept us well fed. She kindly ensured that I had vegetarian options, which meant I ate beans and rice most lunches and dinners. Fine by me!
Land use change, usually driven by agriculture, is a major environmental concern for the Amazon. Those changes were all around us at Tanguro.
Tanguro is located in Brazil's Arc of Deforestation, where farming encroaches on historic rainforest. We were immediately surrounded by soy and corn farmlands. Since 2004, scientists have been allowed to research on the Tanguro farm, which is comprised of about 50% untouched rainforest, 50% farmland.
This field sits directly behind the cafeteria. Very few of these plants could be found in an undisturbed rainforest. Even the eucalyptus trees on the horizon aren't native.
Even this image contains unnatural land features for a rainforest. A river was dammed to make this reservoir.
Here are more eucalyptus trees. Farmers plant them for shade.
Animals that are native to the area, like tapirs, must navigate forest fragmentation. Here, he wades through a soybean field to reach a different section of forest.
Different habitat, different animals. This burrowing owl, which prefers to live in open grasslands, made its home on the research station grounds.
Entering the forest was like stepping into a different world.
The science team gathered data for several experiments.
A coworker rinses a syringe with water from a nearby stream.
We measured and sampled the same streams at several points, which helps us create temperature profiles and understand nutrient transport.
A final wiring check before deployement.
These chambers measure aquatic methane gas concentrations on the manmade reservoirs. The foam platform keeps the structure afloat and the clear chamber automatically opens and closes to reset the gas concentrations to the ambient level. The chamber is powered by the solar panel atop the waterproof case, which houses a small circuitboard that keeps everything running.
The red areas on the monitor are the hottest, and they are few and far between in the forest. Most of the understory is blue and green, with red present only at the top of the canopy.
Thermal drones help us understand differences in the temperature profiles of farmland and forests.
It's a long climb to the top.
In the forest, there is a narrow flux tower, which measures greenhouse gas concentrations, wind speed and direction, and temperature.
Methanogens, bacteria that produce methane, live in the anoxic reservoir sediment. We collected sediment cores to evaluate their productivity levels at different depths.
A fellow scientist pulls water into an evacuated vial. The water itself is not so important for this experiment. Instead, we intend to measure the dissolved gas particles that float in between water molecules.
Thanks for reading!