Amanda Uowolo
Pacific Southwest Research Station
My favorite science experience occurred while collecting data on species diversity, density, and size in a forest in the Republic of Palau. We had our noses to the ground looking at tree seedlings. We came across a newborn fruit bat that had fallen from his mother’s wing in the tree canopy. We rescued the baby bat and named him Henry. These types of surprises are what make my job exciting. This is often how scientific research works: You go into a situation expecting to find something specific but end up finding the unexpected.
One of the most exciting scientific moments in my career as an ecologist was to collect data on
tree size for a newly discovered tree species, Osmoxylon ngardokense (os mäx ǝ län n gär dȯ ken(t)s). We discovered this tree species in our forest monitoring plot located in Ngardok, in the Republic of Palau. This new tree species has only been found in Ngardok. The new species was discovered because of our forest monitoring research that is part of the Smithsonian’s global network of forest plots. This global network is known as the Forest Global Earth Observatory (ForestGEO). This new tree species was such an exciting discovery for all of us involved in this project. Collecting data on this tree really highlighted the value of doing forest monitoring work because this discovery might not have been made otherwise. When we start scientific studies like this, we do not always know what we will discover and that is what makes field research so exciting. In this photo, I am collecting forest monitoring data with Lomalinda Gabriel (left) in the Ngardok Nature Reserve, Palau.
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