Group A. Isabel, Alex and Kirsten

Starting off our first full day in Sri Lanka, we landed at 3:50am in the Colombo airport. We all managed to get through immigration, then collected our luggage and boarded our last form of transportation before arriving at the hotel (Morven Hotel Colombo). Little did we know, the long awaited rest was insufficient for the day that was to follow. After just 3 hours of sleep, we began our day with breakfast at the hotel. Many of us tried our first hopper (thin, bowl-shaped chick-pea flour pancake with an egg fried on the inside). We then hit the road at 11am and made our way to the University of Colombo, where we were greeted by Dr. Seneviratne, who is Dilini’s former undergraduate supervisor. He then gave us a tour of the zoological museum where we saw many skeletal exhibits including a whale that was under preparation and a variety of preserved specimens. Following this we took a walk around the university exploring the faculty of arts and the faculty of science. During this time, we observed several bird species and were able to identify them. The white-throated kingfisher posed perfectly for a picture! We gathered in a lecture hall to listen to Dr. Lougheed’s insights regarding new tools for monitoring impacts of Arctic climate on polar bears and other charismatic megafauna using non-invasive genomics-based fecal analyses. After the talk, we took the bus to Diyasaru Park to birdwatch in the wetlands. There were many stellar species that we were able to spot on our walk. These included the Grey-Headed Swamphen, Indian Darter, White-Bellied Drongo, Pheasant-Tailed Jacana and the Giant Flying Foxes, to name a few. After this long day we were all exhausted and ready to get back to the hotel, with several members of our group taking a lovely nap on the bus. Upon arrival, we had time to rest and then ate dinner at 7:30. We ended the day at the Treehouse rooftop bar, sharing drinks and laughs with newly made friends.

And we are off. We assembled at Pearson Terminal 3 around 3-4PM, with some folks having challenges because the UP Express was impeded. But we were able to get out boarding passes, and pass through security without issue. We departed around 8PM local time for an approximately 12 hour flight, arriving in Doha at ~3:30 local time for a quick layover of a few hours. Security was quick and we settled in for some coffees and-the refreshments. We departed for Colombo at 7:30 local time for an approximately 4 hour flight.

We leave in about a week but continue our preparations including student seminars presenting and critiquing peer-reviewed papers from the primary literature. We assembled in a Biosciences classroom but were joined virtually by Induja, Kalindu, and Ravindi from Sri Lanka. Vanessa presented a paper that evaluated the contribution of dispersal to biogeographic patterns and particularly Wallace’s Line. Claire explored how abiotic and biotic factors shape organization of rock pool arthropod communities in India. Kirsten chatted to us about an experimental paper on Asian elephants and how they are keystone contributors to structure and diversity of Sundaic forests. Finally, Hannah evaluated a an article on tropical tree species diversity across an altitudinal gradient in Sri Lanka.

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