Nine Highlanders are on their way to the Peruvian jungle for the next three weeks
as part of the Radford Away Research Expedition (RARE): Amazonia.
The trek gives undergraduate students the opportunity to explore an Amazonian rainforest
ecosystem and a forum in which to conduct scholarly projects. RARE: Amazonia was previously
held each spring from 2015 to 2019 and is now resuming after being paused during the
pandemic.
This year's journey, which began May 15, will be overseen by Assistant Professors
of Biology Joy Caughron and Tara Pelletier.
Some of the projects and experiments that will take place include creating an ethnobotanical
field guide; documenting the presence of chytrid fungus, an amphibian pathogen; and
examining the effects of immersion in nature on a person's well-being and mindfulness.
Students in the RARE: Amazonia program will spend part of their time in Puerto Maldonado,
near Peru's eastern border, where they will connect with guides from the conservation
and ecotourism group Tamandua, LLC, whose mission is to protect and conserve Peru's
jungles.
During the trip, Radford's group will also travel to the Las Piedras Biodiversity
Station, a laboratory located in the midst of more than 30,000 acres of rainforest.
This remote locale – reached following an eight-hour journey by both car and boat
– will provide the students a foreign environment in which to conduct experiments
that compare and contrast with the results they've recorded domestically in such fields
as animal behavior, parasites of mammals and birds, carcass decomposition and the
immune responses of insects in both logged and unlogged areas of the jungle.
During their stay, students will also visit different parts of the Madre de Dios region.
Biology Professor Jason Davis has worked with RARE since its inception and said the students and their projects
cover an array of interests.
“It’s not exclusively a science trip,” Davis explained. “Each year, we really want
to take a range of students – artists, anthropologists, sociologists, someone studying
business or nursing.
“These students are our researchers; they are engaged in a process of discovery, whether
that is studying, for example, the language traditions of the local people or exploring
microbial fauna,” he said.
“They’re doing their own thing, which gives them real ownership of it, and helping
each other with different projects at the same time.”
The RARE group is scheduled to return to the United States on June 5.
Also this month, a separate branch of RARE – the Radford Away Research Expedition: Appalachia – will undertake a similar mission, albeit somewhat closer to home. RARE Appalachia
will spend the second half of May visiting such local areas as Troutdale, Damascus,
Abingdon and Burke’s Garden. Along the way, they’ll camp out, visit a coal mine and
stop in at Abingdon’s Barter Theatre.
