Our 15-month project in the eastern half of Izabal area of Guatemala has evolved to focusing on wetlands vegetation and habitats: swamps, marshes, riverside ecosystems, lake and lagoon side ecosystems, and the biodiverse areas inland starting several meters from the Caribbean Beach (of Amatique Bay). This Municipio de Livingston area project has three more months before this phase is completed.
My immersion in wetlands of Izabal has motivated me to focus on wetlands of the Reserva de Biosfera Maya (RBM). The RBM is the entire northern half of Peten: from Lake Peten Itza at the south all the way up to the Peten-Campeche border at the north; and from the Peten-Chiapas border at the west across to the Peten-Belize border at the east.
Since savannas of RBM are seasonally inundated (as are the adjacent bajos, tintal areas that surround the grassland savannas), I am including savannas in our coverage of wetlands. We have documented several remarkable savannas during our 2018-2019 project in PNYNN (Parque Nacional Yaxha, Nakum and Naranjo). Now we continue there plus are expanding to cover the entire project area: Reserva de la Biosfera Maya (RBM). So in August we visited two savannas in the far southeast part of Parque Nacional Laguna del Tigre (PNLT). We focus on the far southeast because 99% of previous helpful ecological, botanical, and zoological research by other professors in this park has been at the west and northwest.
Posted October 4, 2021
