By Audrey Hurt, Austin Community College
Hello! My name is Audrey Hurt, and I am in the Conservation Science and Wildlife Management associate program at Austin Community College. I am passionate about my long term career goals in the environmental field, and I hope to learn and become qualified enough to take my scientific knowledge to the policy space. During my free time, I enjoy playing and walking my beloved dog, Malta, and spending quality goofing around with my family and friends. I also love The Apothecary Diaries, botany, and philosphy– if you get me talking about them, I will HAPPILY indulge!
My project is on neotropical army ants, Eciton burchellii and Eciton hamatum, with the goal of collecting data on prey specificity during their raids. Not much is known about what they target as prey in the Peruvian rainforest, and would be used to compare between Central American army ants and determine what or if there is a variation of prey specificity. The primary method of data collection is to go on a series of hikes around Manu Biological Research Station and document any raid, movement, or otherwise social activity from these two species, and collect any specimens that are holding prey. This is so that we can document what prey they seem to be targeting.
I plan to stay in Peru for a few days after our program ends on July 1st. During this time I plan to visit the major sites in Cusco: Machu Picchu, Ollaytutambo, and the city of Aguas Callientes. However, during the program, I will not only stay at another research station in the Andean cloud forest, Wayquecha Biological Station, but will then be spending around 16 nights at the Manu Biological Research Station, in the heart of the Peruvian rainforest. I plan to hike and take pictures every chance I get of mushrooms, birds, insects, and plants/flowers!
I have been excited to conduct field research, and to be documenting all of our data collection for further analysis. I am comprehensive about scheduling and playing the balancing act between all the projects that have been piled into this one trip– I am also knocking out my practicum hours while I am here, and that added 2 more data collecting projects on top of everything– however I believe in my group and in my tenacity and flexibility. Personally, I am elated to get the chance to fully practice my Spanish! To be immersed will be such a bonus to the study abroad experience that I am beyond excited to experience. I love being around fellow Latin Americans and I am excited to get acclimated to the environment– especially compared to the flora and fauna of Austin Texas! (I truly, wholly, hope and pray to see capybaras.)
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