Conducting Research in the Dark

By Nicole Eng

I recently wrote a blog post about conducting research underwater, focusing on its novelty and associated challenges. Well, we have since left Bocas del Toro and arrived at La Selva Biological Station in Heredia Province so my time conducting research with a snorkel has come to an end for the foreseeable future. However, I did get to experience conducting research in another new environment these last few days: the dark.

            Liz, my partner for the independent project, and I decided to investigate leaf-cutting ants, a target species we were both interested in working with and knew were extremely easy to locate close to marked trails. When designing the study we were going to carry out with the leaf-cutters, we had one condition: we were not going to work at night. First off, Liz goes to bed on the earlier side so she didn’t want to have to stay up late; I am skittish enough in the daytime and get freaked out by every unexplained noise and rustling leaf that I did not need the added threat of the darkness. We also acknowledged the fact that we were getting close to the end of the program and knew our schedule may prevent us from spending time with other members of the group. However, the ants didn’t care about our preferences and after finally figuring out the variables we wanted to test, it became clear that we would have to work at night.

            Luckily, we didn’t end up having to work too late which solved a bunch of the anticipated problems, but doing research in the dark did come with its unexpected challenges, especially the first night. I was the only one who had a functioning flashlight which meant we had to trade off who was holding it in order to do anything that required vision (this was later solved by using headlamps). It also meant that it took double the time to get anything done and forced me to use my chin or knees to hold it in place while I tried to record data. Additionally, since my sense of vision was so inhibited, my hearing was intensified. While seemingly useful, this also turned out to be a hindrance since even the slightest noise evoked a sense of panic in Liz and myself. We were constantly doing 360 checks to make sure nothing had snuck up on us without our knowledge. We had to frequently reassure each other that the scary noise we had just heard was just a branch falling and not a mysterious nocturnal creature waiting to kill us. The worst part for me, however, was the countless frogs and toads we saw out there- a fear I didn’t know I had until that first night when I spotted the bright eye shine of the biggest bullfrog I’ve ever seen. I am quite embarrassed to say that I was actually paralyzed with fear at the sight of that enormous frog sitting a meter away from me.

            Although not being able to see was frustrating, admittedly, there were some advantages. It was colder than it is during the day which was nice and we were the only ones using the lab which gave us the liberty to sing as loudly as our hearts desired without disturbing anyone. It also gave me and Liz the chance to experience the forest and field work in a whole new way which was really enjoyable, especially when our professor joined us and could tell me what was making all of the noises I heard!