Alicia Rich

Alicia Rich

Jul 23, 2016

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Methods Part 1: Life in the Field

I collected these samples from a field site where researchers have been studying chimpanzees since 1994. All field research can be grueling and risky, but this was an especially challenging place to live and work. I spent a total of twelve months with the Semliki Chimpanzee Project, first between June and August of 2011, and again between June 2013 and March 2014. This is what my home looked like during those months:

We lived in tents in the middle of Toro-Semliki Wildlife Reserve. Because the reserve sits in a rift valley with plenty of open grassland, it gets very hot. During the dry season temps over 105° were not uncommon. We did not have running water, and we had some electricity that came from solar-charged batteries. On sunny days this was enough to charge a laptop and some cell phones. During the rainy season this often meant several days without any power at all.

Our drinking water came from the Mugiri River, just a few hundred meters from camp. Our staff of four local Ugandans (this staff changed over time, but most recently included Moses, Wisely, Singoma, and Richard) carried water from this river every day. They boiled some of that water for drinking. The rest was used for bathing and washing our dishes and clothes. My first season at Semliki we didn’t have a shower. Instead we hung some old tent fabric around a cement platform, where we used buckets of water to bathe. During my longer stint, we were lucky enough to have a makeshift shower. A large tank used gravity to deliver rainwater into a faucet. Instead of tent fabric, three walls of wood paneling provided privacy. If showers could be timed correctly during mid-afternoon, the water was even a pleasant lukewarm temperature. It may seem odd to some people, but these things are what I often love most about field research. I thrive on simplicity like this, and everything always seems fresh and rewarding when I first return to my life in the US.

Off to gather water.

Wisely making dinner.

Saturdays were movie night on the laptop!

I awoke every morning before dawn. I slipped on dirty, tattered field pants and slid my feet into my gumboots while the cicadas were still chirping and the baboons slept in the trees just over my head. Moses was always singing and bouncing around in the kitchen. He’d be frying eggs and laughing at his own jokes before I could even open up my eyes all the way. I would sit around the breakfast table pressing my coffee and discussing the day’s plans with the rest of the staff and the wildlife ranger with whom I’d be tracking chimpanzees that day. We’d argue over where last night’s chimp calls were coming from and discuss the best route to get us there quickly. Then, just as the sun rose and the Colobus monkeys began to roar, I’d reach for my walking stick, toss on my pack, and descend into the forest toward Mugiri Trail.

Every day I had one mission: gather more poop. When I designed my study I debated using a few different biological samples for DNA analysis. For a while I considered hair, but it generally only offers low-quality DNA. I settled upon poop because I could collect, store, and transport it without refrigeration or expensive chemicals and because it would be easy to gather without interfering in the chimpanzees’ daily lives.

Chimpanzees construct a new nest every night, usually gathering with other members of the community wherever they ate dinner together that evening. In the morning, before they leave that nest behind, they first eliminate (pee and poop) over the side. Thus every morning I hoped and prayed to find a good nest site from the night before. If I found a large nest site, the ground beneath it would be littered with fresh fecal samples. I always danced with joy at the site of chimp poop all over the ground.

Each time that I gathered a fecal sample I also recorded GPS coordinates. If I collected multiple samples within the same area, I made a note of the approximate distance between them. That is because if individuals nest together or travel together, then they must be members of the same community. I recorded a wide range of additional data, such as the time and date, the location by trail number, and whether I’d been tracking any chimpanzees at the time.

I used a stick to gather a bolus of feces and drop it into a sterile tube with 30 ml of ethanol. The ethanol would clean off some of the contamination from soil or plants in the environment and jump-start an important drying process. The next day I poured off the ethanol and transferred the bolus into another sterile tube – this time containing beads of silica gel. Just like the silica beads in shoeboxes, they served as a desiccant. Drying the sample this way protected the DNA from degradation and kept other organisms like mold, fungus, and bacteria from growing. Best of all, this method of preservation does not require refrigeration (hello, no electricity!) or expensive chemicals.

If I managed to find a group of chimpanzees I would keep up with them for as long as possible, gathering any feces that they left behind. I also tried to record some behavioral data, though in the end I only had about 70 hours of solid observation over 12 months, not enough for statistical significance. Still, I used a method called “Scan Sampling.” Every ten minutes I recorded the number of individuals traveling together, their age/sex class, and their identity, if I knew it. I also recorded what each individual was doing based on category options from this list:

Any behavioral data that I collected were connected to fecal samples taken that day in my notes. On a few rare occasions I even managed to watch an identified chimpanzee poop, collect the sample, and make note of it. Those samples will be treated like gold in the lab!

Research at this site was difficult. The hours were long, and I often went days or weeks without seeing a single chimpanzee or collecting one poop. I suffered some great trauma and experienced some unforgettable moments. I changed a lot during my time at Semliki and even more after my return. While I’d love to be able to describe all of it to my research backers, it would take up more writing than my whole dissertation. For now I wanted to give you a brief idea of what went into collecting each of the samples that I am now working with in the lab. Between 2011 and 2014 I collected 389 samples, and now I am attempting to extract DNA from each one. Stay tuned for more information on that process, and please don’t hesitate to ask questions about any step of this project. I am so excited to make all of you a part of it!

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About This Project

Unlike most chimpanzee habitats, the Toro-Semliki Wildlife Reserve is a diverse mosaic of grassland, woodland, and swamp. The most ideal chimpanzee habitat lies in two narrow corridors of riverine forest that stretch across this mosaic. I collected DNA samples from the chimpanzees that live there to better understand through DNA analysis how corridors facilitate or constrain chimpanzee gene flow. The results of this study will inform conservation strategies across east and central Africa.

More Lab Notes From This Project

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