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 * All Services
 * About Us
 * Amazon Animal Cams
 * Museums
   * Indigenous Museum
   * Boat Museum
 * Rio Amazonas Research Station
 * Community Conservation
 * Research Projects

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 * All Services
 * About Us
 * Amazon Animal Cams
 * Museums
   * Indigenous Museum
   * Boat Museum
 * Rio Amazonas Research Station
 * Community Conservation
 * Research Projects




RIO AMAZONAS RESEARCH STATION: STUDENT AND VISITOR TRIPS

Student trips to the Amazon: Study Amazon wildlife in the biodiverse rainforests
on a tributary of the Amazon river and learn about dolphins, primates, macaws,
wading birds, fish, bats, caimans, otters and much more. Visit and work with
local communities involved with conservation.
Visitor trips accompany wildlife surveys and lean about Amazon wildlife in the
biodiverse rainforests on a tributary of the Amazon river. Observe dolphins,
primates, macaws, wading birds, fish, bats, caimans, otters and much more. Visit
and work with local communities involved with conservation.
Reservations: info@fundamazonia.org

Oportunidades para Estudiantes 2021-22

Student Opportunities 2021-22

Visitor Information

Students and visitors stay in a floating research station equipped with
air-conditioned, en-suit accommodation, dining room, lecture and film room, and
open deck areas. Watch wildlife with experienced biologists and learn about the
biodiversity, wildlife, local people, the Amazon rivers and tropical
rainforests.
What we offer
Daily wildlife surveys include: early morning and late afternoon bird watching,
dolphin observations, fishing surveys, trekking in the forests in search of
primates, frogs, birds and more, night time caiman and bat surveys. More
advanced students can be involved with camera traps for jaguar, tapir and
peccary surveys, and high frequency hydrophone and side-scan sonar for fish and
dolphin research.

Reservations: Direct with us at info@fundamazonia.org

The student and visitor trips use a research boat that is moored on a biodiverse
tributary next to the Amazon River. You travel to and from the research station
in a boat.

Rooms can be used as single, double and triple accommodation.
Larger student and family rooms available.
Rooms are air-conditioning during mid-day and evening hours (noon-2pm and
6-10pm)

Rooms have en-suit shower and toilet facilities.
Price: See PDF’s for prices

Reservations: info@fundamazonia.org
All inclusive: transfers from Iquitos-Research Station-Iquitos; breakfast, lunch
and dinner; wildlife surveys and local community visits, in comfortable student
level accommodation.

The research boat has a nurse for larger teams (10+). Health facilities are 1
hour by boat from the site.

Travel time from Iquitos to the research site is 3 hours; two hours in
automobile and one hour in boat.



Join our research boat in the Peruvian Amazon and our team of researchers and
conservationists as we study wildlife and learn about the ecology and
conservation of tropical rainforests. Professor Richard Bodmer and his team of
researchers and conservationists run the floating research station and have been
working in the Peruvian Amazon for 36 years. Over 700 students have studied on
the Pithecia floating research station on field courses, research degrees and
volunteering.



The Peruvian Amazon has truly exceptional wilderness and some of the greatest
diversities of animals and plants on Earth. You will learn how to conduct
research on a variety of animals and plants with projects on a range of species,
including dolphins, macaws, caimans, monkeys, other mammals, large forest birds,
understory birds, frogs, palm trees and fish, among others. These animals and
plants are used as key indicator species to determine the success of
conservation. Some of the species, such as the dolphins and macaws are being
used to monitor the health of the aquatic and terrestrial habitats, whereas
other species such as the monkeys, caiman, and fish are being used to monitor
the impact of hunting and fishing.




STUDENT TRIP OVERVIEW

The Amazonian forests of Loreto, Peru are situated in the western Amazon basin
and harbor some of the greatest mammalian, avian, floral and fish diversity on
Earth. The projects in Loreto, Peru have been running since 1984. The vision of
these projects is to set up long-term biodiversity conservation using a
combination of community-based, protected area, and landscape strategies based
on wildlife conservation. The research and conservation activities use an
interdisciplinary approach to find a balance between the needs of the indigenous
people and the conservation of the animals and plants. The project in Loreto
Peru is working with several conservation groups, universities and government
agencies to implement a strategy for wildlife conservation that will result in
landscape level biodiversity conservation. These goals are being implemented by
taking three foci: 1) conservation action, 2) promoting conservation and 3)
conservation orientated research. The results of the project in Loreto will
advance community-based wildlife management, protected area management, wildlife
conservation policy in the Peruvian Amazon, and help set new protected areas.
Student team members will participate with research of wildlife populations.
Student team members will be involved with our research on monitoring wildlife
populations and working with monitoring wildlife use and community-based
wildlife management plans in local indigenous villages. Examples of student team
member activities include studies on the ungulates, macaws, large-bodied
primates, caimans, dolphins, giant river otters, manatees, river turtles, game
birds, understory birds, large cats, other large mammals, palm trees and large
fish. Student team members will also work with the monitoring of community-based
conservation activities in indigenous communities.

All field activities are accompanied by a biologist and local field assistants.


STUDY AREA
The study area is the Lower Yarapa River basin in the buffer zones of the
Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve and the Tamshiyacu-Tahuayo Regional Community
Reserve located in the Marañon-Ucayali subsidence area of the Ucamara depression
(Map). The study area is part of the largest block of várzea flooded forests in
the Western Amazon and extends over an area of 2,080,000 ha in the Department of
Loreto, Peru. The flooded forest in the study site has land formations with
varying levels of annual flooding that are divided into six broad categories,
including riverine forests, open understory flooded forests, levee forests,
liana forests, tree fall gaps and aguaje palm swamps. Aquatic formations include
the Yarapa River, oxbow lakes and channels.
The Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve was decreed in 1982 and is currently
co-managed between the Peruvian Protected Area Service and the Cocama (Kukama)
indigenous people through community-based management groups. The
Tamshiyacu-Tahuayo Regional Community Reserve was first decreed in 1990 and
renewed in 2007.
Sustainable resource use and traditional activities are permitted within the
reserves, including subsistence fishing and hunting. The people rely on small
scale agriculture and fishing as their primary activities, and hunting to a
lesser extent. They adapt their hunting and fishing activities according to the
seasonal water level and the availability of fish and wildmeat resources, with a
greater focus on fishing during low water seasons and an increase in hunting
during high water seasons.


RESEARCH AREA

The climate in the region is typically equatorial with annual temperatures
ranging from 22◦C–36◦C, a relative humidity of 80%–100%, and annual rainfall of
1,500–3,000 mm. We used water level data from the hydrological station of
Iquitos collected by the Servicio de Hidrografía y Navegación de la Amazoníathat
provided long-term data with complete daily records between 1978-2015 and
partial records between 1968-1977in the proximity of the study area. Water
levels from the Servicio de Hidrografía agreed with trends and pulses of
previous studies that used different data sets. Duration of intensive floods
included consecutive days when water level exceeded 117.65 m.a.s.l.
The study site and surrounding areas have a predictable annual water level cycle
that includes the high-water season from February-May, a transitional period to
low water from June-July, a low water season from August-October and a
transitional period to high water in November-January. The percentage of dry
land remaining during peak flood pulsewas determined using the height of water
marks of trees in twenty 20×20 m vegetation plots.

HABITAT TYPES

The principal habitat types of the Peruvian Amazon are a result of large-scale
geological changes that occurred during the tertiary and quaternary periods. The
Yarapa River basin is situated in the Pevas lake bed that formed after the
uplifting of the Andes. When the Pevas Lake drained it left a geological
depression in this area of western Amazonia, which is currently characterized by
soft alluvial soils.
The wildlife of the Yarapa River lives in an ecosystem that is characterised by
large seasonal fluctuations occurring between the high water and low water
seasons. The ecology of the aquatic and terrestrial wildlife revolves around
these seasonal changes in water level.
The large seasonal inundations that annually occur along the immense floodplains
of the Amazon river are a result of rainfall in the foothills of the Andes.
During the summer months of October to May precipitation off the southern
Atlantic Ocean results in heavy rainfall on the eastern Andes that runoff into
the western Amazon basin. The result is large scale flooding along the major
rivers situated in the old lake bed and the high-water season. In contrast,
during the winter months of June to September the precipitation off the southern
Atlantic Ocean decreases and the rains in the eastern Andes is greatly reduced,
resulting in the drying up of the western Amazonian rivers and the low water
season.
The Amazon River is an order of magnitude greater than any other river basin on
Earth. The rivers that originate in the eastern Andes are rich in sediments that
are picked up from the recent geological formations of the Andes, giving the
rivers a whitish colour. These white-water rivers continually deposit and pick
up sediments as they flow through the old Pevas lake bed of western Amazonia.
The white-water rivers of western Amazonia are extremely dynamic and change
course in a matter of a few years, with islands and channels continually forming
and being washed away. This is a result of three concurrent factors, 1) the soft
alluvial soil of the Pevas Lake bed, 2) the enormous volume of water that passes
through the basin as a result of precipitation, and 3) the large quantities of
sediments that are picked up and deposited as the rivers run their course.
The study site is situated near the confluence of the two largest tributaries to
the Amazon in Peru, the Ucayali and Maranon Rivers. The meeting of these two
rivers come together to form the Amazon River proper. The Ucayali and Maranon
Rivers have snaked back and forth across the flooded forests over the millennia
leaving behind an abundance of oxbow lakes, channels, levees, and other
geological features.
The soils of the flooded forests in the study site are rich in nutrients due to
the white-water rivers of the Ucayali and Maranon flowing through the forests
and depositing sediments during the high-water period. The flooded forests are
characterised by a blackish colour during high water. This is a result of the
white water from the Amazon entering the flooded forests, depositing the
sediments as the currents slow during their movement through the forests, and
the water picking up tannins from the leaf litter.
Whilst the soil of these várzea forests is rich, the ecological conditions of
long periods of flooding, up to 6 months, is very harsh on much of the floral
and faunal community. Many plant species cannot withstand the long periods of
inundation and the diversity of plants in the heavily flooded areas is lower
than lightly and non-flooded levees. Likewise, the terrestrial wildlife must
seek out floodplain islands or levees during the high-water season, which have
increased competition and predation pressures. Even the arboreal wildlife is
impacted by the flooding, since many of the fruit trees are quite seasonal in
the várzea forests, resulting in seasons with low food production.
The aquatic wildlife is equally affected by the large seasonal inundations.
During the flooded periods the fish enter the flooded forests and feed on the
abundance of vegetative and animal production, especially the abundance of
fruits, invertebrates and other living organisms trapped in the annual floods.
Indeed, many trees fruit during this season and rely on the fish as their
primary means of seed dispersal. During the flooded period many fish populations
reproduce within the inundated forests. Other aquatic wildlife had a more
difficult time during the floods, such as the dolphins, giant river otter and
other fish predators, since their prey is more sparsely distributed throughout
the large expanses of the flooded forests. When the waters recede during the dry
months, fish populations become condensed in the reduced lakes, rivers and
channels with ever increasing competition and predation. During this period many
fish populations migrate out of the várzearivers and into the larger rivers. The
dolphins and other fish predators have an abundance of prey during the low water
season and even follow the fish migrations down the rivers and channels.
The people who live in the flooded forests also have adapted to the seasonal
fluctuations in both the use of the natural resources and their agriculture.
During the high-water season fishing is more difficult, since the fish are
dispersed throughout the inundated forests. However, during this period hunting
becomes easier with the large bushmeat species, such as deer, peccaries and
tapir being trapped on the levees and islands. In contrast, during the low water
season the bush meat species become difficult to hunt as they range throughout
the entire forests, and the fish become easy prey being trapped in the reduced
water bodies of the lakes, channels and rivers. The local indigenous people of
the floodplain forests alter their hunting and fishing accordingly, with a
greater emphasis on hunting during the high-water season and a greater focus on
fishing during the low water season.
The agriculture of people inhabiting the flooded forests takes advantage of the
rich soils from the annual deposits of sediments and the short growing period
that needs to be harvested before the floods return. Traditionally, people of
the flooded forests have relied on the manioc as their staple agricultural
product. Manioc has a short growing period that can be planted and harvested
within the low water season. Manioc flour (fariña) is produced by baking
pounded. Manioc flour can be stored throughout the year and supply carbohydrates
to the people during the flooded periods.
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