Iobopen.com is hosting a series of blogs based on an article from Outside about “Awe” being good for the brain. We asked IOB authors to share their moments of “Awe” in the field. Read our first installation below.
Awe among the frogs
by Brandon A. Güell, PhD
In 2018, I flew to Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula to study the poorly documented behavioral ecology of the gliding treefrog (Agalychnis spurrelli) as part of my PhD research. It was my first field season on my own, and I was eager to make novel natural history observations that would help develop my doctoral research. Back then, gliding treefrog reproduction was notoriously hard to predict, rare, and known to occur at only a few remote locations. We knew even less about their ecology and behavior at early life stages. For weeks I woke up at 4 am to survey my field site (a very large rainforest pond) and look for breeding activity.
Finally, the day I had prepared so hard for and eagerly awaited had finally come. It was a morning after a night of torrential rainstorms that ended a short dry spell, and even before entering the swamp I could already hear a deafening chorus coming from the pond. Though sleepless and mosquito-ridden, I trudged chest-deep through the murky, caiman-infested swamp waters with notebook and camera in hand to reach the source of the chaos. That’s when I saw it: the largest aggregation of gliding treefrogs I have ever seen. I was in complete awe!
There were literally tens of thousands of adult gliding treefrogs everywhere: on the leaves and branches of several trees and palms that overhung the pond, parachuting down from the canopy, swimming to the water’s edge after falling in the pond, and walking up large tree trunks and branches to rejoin the densest part of the aggregation. It was a remarkable display of explosive breeding and truly lived up to the ‘mating mayhem’ reputation, as males vastly outnumbered females and competed fiercely for mates, using calls and physical combat. Unpaired males piled onto mating pairs, forming trios and larger groups that often fell into the pond below where caimans snatched them up. Tiger herons and other predators actively hunted frogs on the water’s edge and from peripheral branches. Leaves over the pond were left covered with hundreds of thousands to millions of egg masses, all of which attracted a plethora of predators, including arboreal snakes, wasps, birds, and even white-faced capuchins.
I was so excited, overwhelmed, and in awe of the spectacular and rare display of wildlife and animal behavior, that I lost track of time and space. Four hours later, I realized the event was coming to an end and that somehow, I had taken over 800 photos. To this day, my first explosive breeding event was the largest aggregation I have seen. I would return to this frog breeding paradise every summer for the next several years to conduct my doctoral research, some of which you can learn more about in an IOB publication and related blog post.
Links to IOB blog post and publication on the described study system:
Egg-Clutch Biomechanics Affect Escape-Hatching Behavior and Performance
B A Güell, J G McDaniel, K M Warkentin
https://doi.org/10.1093/iob/obae006
About me:
I am a first-generation Costa Rican-American Wildlife Ecologist & Photographer. I have a profound interest in natural history, ecology, and animal behavior. I believe integrative field biology and natural history observations are critical in developing hypothesis-driven research that expands our understanding of the biodiversity in our natural world, and I believe that photography plays a key role in science and conservation communication.
I am currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Institute of Environment at Florida International University. My research aims to better understand predator-prey interactions and small animal population dynamics in South Florida’s Everglades.
My Ph.D. dissertation research at Boston University—funded by an NSF Pre-doctoral Research Fellowship—focused on assessing the reproductive and behavioral ecology of the gliding treefrog (Agalychnis spurrelli). I examined explosive breeding and its consequences for critical adult and embryo behaviors in gliding treefrogs on Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula.
Find out more about my work at www.brandonguell.com, follow me on Instagram @brandon_guell, and contact me at bguell@fiu.edu.
Integrative Organismal Biology 