If you can stay for a period of 7 weeks you will have enough time to visit the marine site following 6 weeks of data collection for a dissertation project at the terrestrial site. This can be for research experience or used for your final dissertation project as part of your undergraduate studies. With this course after your first 6 weeks in the forest, you would then be able to move to the marine site to gain your PADI open water dive training certification, or if already qualified, take part in the Caribbean reef ecology course.

Those booking this option, please email expeditions@opwall.com to let them know whether you would like to learn to dive, snorkel or are already qualified.

Large mammal density at Calakmul Biosphere Reserve is very high and the forest is one of the last remaining strongholds regionally of endangered mammals such as spider monkeys, jaguar and tapir. Although these species are not hunted, indigenous people are allowed to hunt other large mammals such as peccary and deer (which are the preferred prey of jaguar and puma). As there are no rivers or streams in the reserve, forest structure is also heavily affected by distance from the few permanent water sources in the reserve known as aguadas. Prolonged periods of drought over the last 10 years have resulted in the disappearance of aguadas, especially in the core zone of the reserve. Operation Wallacea monitoring data suggests that ungulates and felids are leaving the safety of the core zone of the reserve and migrating into the South East buffer zone where the climate is more humid and the aguadas still contain water. This is a particularly concerning situation because once the ungulates range into indigenous community land they are extremely vulnerable to hunting, resulting in a loss in abundance of these species and a reduction in available prey for jaguar and puma that in turn can lead to increased human-felid conflict as felids start to attack livestock. The aim of this large mammal research project is to investigate the relationship between water distribution and large mammal ranging and to investigate the impact of hunting of preferred prey species on the abundance and distribution of felids. Mammal abundance data will be collected along a series of forest transects using patch occupancy sampling (based on tracks and signs of more). Additional data will be collected using camera traps, enabling comparison of density estimates produced by the different types of surveys. The survey transects are distributed across a wide range of forest habitat types and each transect contains a number of 20m x 20m habitat survey plots. In each of these plots, tree species will be identified, and DBH and tree height will be measured. Large mammal data from each transect can then be related to mean habitat characteristics for the transect and comparisons between mammal abundance and habitat variables may be investigated.

Extended Dissertation Summary

If you would like to do a dissertation or thesis with us but your university hasn’t started dissertation planning or the project selection process, that’s no problem. You can cancel your expedition with zero cancellation charges up until the 15th of April of if you provide documentation from your university saying that they won’t support completing a dissertation project with us.