During our “lecture week” or a winter break, we have a time off from the strike. 

In that week, we headed to Panama to do some fieldwork. One of the young undergraduates in our lab, Mia Roy, went to assist Lilisbeth in her fieldwork. Lilisbeth is doing fantastic work on the phyllosphere microbiota of the only epiphytic gymnosperm, Zamia pseudoparasitica. In the field, we continued the census of one of the Panamanian endemics Zamia nana. We saw no snakes this time!!, and collected multiple male plants (around 12) and a female plant with cone (only one sighted!! what’s going on?!).  We hope testing “sexing markers” with native Panamanian endemics.

Finally, we visited our nice “Jardín Internacional de cícadas” at the Universidad de Panamá. That day a hard-working group of biologist students were doing social hours (that’s new! cool idea), cleaning up the “jardín”. We collected samples for our metabolic work on Zamia stevensonii (and all available species!).

We continue on strike ! I am looking forward to going back to work and chat with my students about their research !!