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.

The tropical semi-deciduous forest in Calakmul Biosphere Reserve (CBR) largely consists of low to medium canopy forest with limited fruit production, with pockets of high forest containing large fruiting trees. The limited distribution of high canopy forest. appears to be closely related to the location of Ancient Mayan ruin sites. Over 2,000 years ago the Mayans cultivated large fruiting trees such as Ramon (Brosimium alicastrom) as a food supply and other fruiting trees such as Chicozapote (Manilkra zapota) and Mora (Maclura tintoria) were cultivated for extraction of resins and dyes, but also produce abundant fruit. These cultivated trees were generally planted near water sources and irrigated to enable them to grow as large as possible. Remnants of these forest gardens are still found today adjacent to ruin sites and result in areas of forest with high fruit production containing trees that are notably larger than elsewhere in the forest. There are two species of primate in CBR, Geoffroy’s spider monkey (Ateles geoffroyi) and the black howler monkey (Alouatta pigra). Operation Wallacea monitoring data has indicated that they are not evenly distributed across the reserve and occur in high densities in some areas while being virtually absent from others. The aim of the primate monitoring project is to investigate the relationship between habitat characteristics, water distribution and vicinity to Mayan ruins and the abundance and distribution of primates. Primate abundance data will be collected along a series of forest transects across different locations in the reserve with varying distances from ruin sites using distance sampling (based on visual sightings). 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, the distance to water and Mayan ruins is recorded, saplings and understory vegetation are measured, and for each tree, the DBH will be measured and the species will be identified. Primate distribution in relation to habitat will be assessed using the same transect data combined with opportunistic sightings of primates along transects. Floristic predictors of primate distribution can then be determined by linking each primate sighting to the nearest habitat plot, providing a corresponding set of habitat variables for each primate record suitable for statistical modelling.

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.