Rainforest Bound

By Sara Rangel

We left Brisbane for Lamington Plateau National Park on Monday, April 11^th. The bus ride was only about two hours long, and it was through beautiful scenery. We drove our way high up a mountain until it felt like we were in the middle of nowhere, but, in fact, we arrived at a camping ground and resort once we reached the top. Lamington Plateau National Park is a subtropical rainforest, and as soon as we arrived we understood the ‘rain’ part to that equation. Immediately as we began to set up out surprisingly intricate tents it started pouring rain, and didn’t stop for the rest of the day. We ploughed through it though, and ended up accomplishing a lot within the first day we were there. We took a walk through the rainforest and up suspension bridges until we were at the top of the canopy of the rainforest. It was a beautiful view! During this walk we learned some preliminary information about rainforests from our lecturers, David Yates and Sarah Bell. We learned about epiphytes,, which are plants that grow on trees in the rainforest. One of the most interesting plants we learned of is the strangler fig tree. This tree starts to grow at the top of a host tree when its seeds are placed there by birds, and slowly it extends its roots down to the ground. Once it is established it actually ‘strangles’ its host tree to death. Once the host tree is out of the picture, the strangler fig tree is hollow on the inside. We looked at an example of this tree with the hollow inside, and it was amazing! This first rainforest walk was a great way to introduce us to our surroundings.

Later on our first day, we broke into two different groups (A & B) so that our activities for the rest of the week were done in smaller numbers. Group A went to the rainforest to set animal traps for the night. We set three different kinds of traps: wire, Elliot, and possum traps. Early the next morning Group A went out to look at the traps and identify the animals that were caught. There were many subtropical antechinuses, which are little marsupial mice. They were surprisingly cute! Other than that we caught a lot of bush rats, which were interesting, but also known for their pungent smell.

Both group A and B started field research studies on Tuesday. Group A studied the structure of the rainforest while group B studied the structure of the Eucalypt forest. The purpose of these studies was to compare the two forest types to see the differences in biodiversity. Also on Tuesday, both groups started to plan a second research project. This project is aimed at looking at rainforest plant and animal competition. Each group is doing something completely different and it should be interesting looking at all of the results. Some people are looking at fungi and lichen, others are looking at bird behavior, and still others are looking at epiphytes in the rainforest. All of these projects should turn out great results!

By the way, ever since the first day in Lamington it has been sunny and beautiful; we got lucky with the weather yet again. It is wonderful being out of the city and in such a remote and stunning area of Australia!

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