Upon completing my undergraduate degree, I had may heart set on doing a Masters in research. The first step was easy, knowing that I wanted to go into a Masters in research, not a taught one. The second step was the hard part, what!? I had developed many different avenues of interest throughout my undergraduate years, in particular the illegal wildlife trade, eDNA (environmental DNA), iDNA (invertebrate DNA) and Biogeography or Island Biogeography, a theory developed by E. O. Wilson which I find fascinating, to name a few. Ideally, an area of research that would lead me back to Africa. These were the narrowed down choices out of the many running through my head. I read journals, I watched documentaries, I searched the internet for inspiration but I was still none the wiser in what area to venture in.
The one goal I had, no matter what avenue I went down, was that my research had to contribute to the conservation of a specific species, group, family or even a habitat or area.
One search led me to an article in The Guardian of Prof. Julian Bayliss, a scientist, a naturalist, an explorer, regarding his use of Google Earth to find a forgotten mountain in Mozambique, Mount Mabu back in 2005. One that has not been explored by scientists for many years. His expeditions with teams of various specialities over the years have been fruitful, with discoveries of species new to science, collection of specimens, DNA, map data, all resulting in increasing the biodiversity of these areas and improving our knowledge. From this one article it let me to unearth all the discoveries by Prof. Bayliss, from a video on YouTube of his research trip to Mount Mabu in Mozambique - 'The lost forest of Mount Mabu' to media articles, blogs and research papers. After many more expeditions and laborious times sat in-front of the computer and in laboratories, many new species have been discovered and some even named after him. These include, a miniature chameleon (Nadzikambia baylissi) with a prehensile tail and a forest gliding butterfly (Cymothoe baylissi). Amongst others, these species are endemic to Mount Mabu meaning they are not found anywhere else.
This is it! This was my eureka moment! This is what I want to do. I want to explore these mountains and surrounding areas.
After exhausting all the avenues for inspiration, I then approached a few lecturers who's specialities fall in some, if not all of my areas of interest. The first question I asked was, "What research or researchers do you know of who are currently working in Africa?" I guess I had my heart set on returning to somewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa at some point because I am drawn to diversity and climate and it's where I was born. There are areas which harbour biodiversity that have been left untouched by scientists all this time. There are many issues regarding overexploitation of natural resources, limited education of the natural world and the services they provide, poverty which leads to the greed and decimation of both flora and fauna and many more.
To cut the story short, it was Dr. Robert Jehle, a lecturer at The University of Salford who I sat down with and started chatting about my wish to venture down the Masters by Research route. Chatted about my interests, my passion for the African wilderness and the various articles I had come across. He suggested using iDNA of leeches in Asia to track an elusive antelope, which is very hard to observe with the naked eye. This sounded tempting. More ideas were coming up and then I threw in a few names, places, chameleons and frogs. Well, Dr. Jehle knew all about research on chameleons and frogs in Mozambique but hadn't heard of Prof. Bayliss however, he knew Simon Loader from the Natural History Museum London, Gabriella (Bibi) Bittencourt-Silva who was Simons PhD student who also helps at the museum, and a few more people who have conducted research mainly on frogs in these particular areas including Chris Barratt. Dr. Jehle told me to leave it with him and he will ask around and true to his word, he delivered.
After a few weeks of group Skype meetings starting with Simon and Bibi in London then Krystal Tolley from the South African National Biological Institute (SANBI) in Cape Town, South Africa we had a plan. Krystal had enough funds left over from a research for another trip to the mountains in Mozambique on a quest to find new species and more specimens for their catalogue. There was room in the team for two extra bodies providing that I was able to pay for my own aeroplane ticket from Manchester, UK, provide a 4 x 4 vehicle and driver! Well, I was willing to make this happen and began to apply for grants and started a fundraising campaign. I managed to get a grant for my flights but the fundraising was a flop. All was not lost as my dad, my knight in shining armour who lives in Beira, Mozambique offered to be my driver and use his 4 x 4. Woohoo!!!! I considered myself very lucky!
Weeks of planning, a trip to London, Simon, Bibi and Dr. Jehle had a project idea - working on a species of frog, Arthroleptis francei, where research is very limited on them and after a brief look into their phylogeny, it seems to need some refinement. So, genetics it was! DNA, biogeography, species distribution modelling, field work, lab work and much more. Well, it's the 'much more' which is the part I did not expect! Read on to find out....
The Expedition
First of all, a team was formed of amazing, knowledgeable specialists with a wealth of experience:
Krystal Tolley - Specialist in phylogenetics, phylogeography and biogeographic studies of African reptiles and amphibians, in particular chameleons, with two published books on chameleons and many peer reviewed papers. Krystal had the grant money from the National Geographic for research in Mozambique.
Gabriella Bittencourt-Silva - Post doctoral researcher at the Natural History Museum specialising in Herpetology, Evolutionary Biology, Systematics and Zoology.
Werner Conradie - Herpetologist from Port Elizabeth Museum (Bayworld), South Africa with a large interest in the conservation, ecology and taxonomy of amphibians.
Avelino Miguel - A Masters student in Brazil working on amphibians and an assistant at the University of Zambeze in Mocuba, Mozambique when he is back home. Avelino also became a Portuguese translator for us as he is a born and bred Mozambican.
Me - A Masters student at The University of Salford and someone who is interested in frogs!
David Langerman - A Zimbabwean born, highly skilled professional guide and our logistics man and translator. He is fluent in Portuguese and too was our translator which is very important in a country where English is not spoken much.
Michael Scott - A Zimbabwean guide, our second vehicle, our logistics man and our brilliant camp chef and provider of snacks and treats.
Patrick Woest - My diver, support, research assistant and friend.
Porters - A massive team of local villagers who helped us cart all our research gear up the mountains for a monetary payment.
Book for the trip was, 'A complete guide to the frogs of Southern Africa' by Louis H du Preez and Vincent Carruthers (ISBN-10: 1770074465). What an amazing book with great information and photos. There is a brilliant Android and Apple app to which I highly recommend but download it when you are on WiFi as it's pretty large.
Here is a video of snippets from the journey - Herpetology Expedition, Mozambique, 2018.
The trip was planned to explore Mounts Ribaué and Inago in the Zambezia region in Mozambique with the nearest, largest town being Nampula (Fig.1). On the 27th November 2018 I flew to Harare, Zimbabwe as it was cheaper and somewhat easier to drive the bad roads from Beira to Nampula.
The blue line is the journey my dad and I took to get to Nampula (05) which took two whole days with a border crossing (02), an overnight stay on the Zambezi river (03) with dads friend on a sugar plantation on the 28th November, a few breakdowns (Fig. 2) and picked Avelino up in Quelimane (04) on the 29th. Once grouping and meeting the whole team, an overnight stay at a beautiful campsite, Montes Nairuco (Fig. 3), just outside Nampula, we set off for the first mountain, Ribaué for the next five days.
At the various B&B's and camps along the way, we would all go out frogging meaning looking for frogs around us and in the little villages we were in. This was my first expert introduction into capturing and identifying East African frogs. We saw a beautiful diversity of various types from tree frogs, burrowing frogs, patterned frogs to species not known to be in sandy environments in built up environments.
Fig.4. Top Left - Mottled Shovel-nosed frog (Hemisus marmoratus), Top Right - Powers rain frog (Breviceps poweri), Middle Left - Bubbling katsina (Kasina senegalensis), Middle Right - Brown-backed Tree frog (Leptopelis mossambicus), Bottom Left - Flat-backed toad juv.(Amietophrynus maculates) , Bottom Right - Shovel-footed Squeaker (Arthroleptis stenadactylus).
Mount Ribaué
Beforehand, Dave had visited the closest village which was located close to the base of the mountain. He wanted to get the word out that we were looking for quite a few porters to help carry our gear up the mountain. They were told to be at the village for 7am the following morning to prepare for the climb. Dave left trusting the word would get out. True to it, the following morning we had a huge group of men turn up. Men, because the woman chose to stay behind to look after the children and home and the men were generally fitter as they make the journey often to maintain and harvest the crops up in the mountain. Porters were divided into roles from permanent camp hands who we would house and feed, those who just help carry our gear and return home and some who would help prepare camp with us.
First off, Werner and Bibi were adamant that we needed to find a good, strong stick to make a walking stick out of. After a brief search and tidy up, we all had a strong walking stick for when the weight on our backs gets heavier and the elevation was against us. We walked for hours. The vegetation barren. The trees all harvested for wood and fuel. The temperatures were in the 40's (degrees Celsius) and the sun belting down on you as there was barely a tree in sight to shelter you. Our bags were getting heavier and we were lagging behind the porters who pretty much raced up the mountain. We climbed over fallen trees, we waded through streams, we had countless breaks until we finally made it to our base camp. Oh wait, Bibi was the only one there! She was catching butterflies while waiting for us to guide us through the thicket for another 20 or so minutes higher to our actual camp spot. Just when we though it was over, after a quick break and a look at the old camp where nature had reclaimed the make-shift branch tables, we trundled on. Finally, after over 6hrs and a long, gradual ascent through mashambas (cultivated land. Fig. 7) in the valley, we arrived at base camp at around 1140m(asl) (Fig. 6).
What was depressing during the first three quarters of the walk was the deforestation. Felled trees everywhere which were black. Black form the deliberate fires that are set to burn the leaf litter, undergrowth and trees to remove them for later land clearance for cultivation. Makeshift temporary grass huts (Fig. 7) erected for a night stop over whilst the land was worked, were placed on the edge of the open land, close to the Miombo woodland. Miombo woodland is a habitat of short trees with thinner trunks and can be referred to as 'sticky'. Miombo, mainly consisting of trees from the genera Brachystegia, Julbernardia and Isoberlinia are very popular for the use of fires. The forest was cleared for crops and the miombo were cleared for a fuel source. It's heartbreaking to witness this double destruction happening before my eyes. Avelino and myself asked a gentleman cutting trees with his two very young sons, "Why do you cut both habitats rather than stockpile the wood from the forest?" "When the forest and miombo disappear, what will your sons have?"
His reply was, "I don't think of tomorrow as it is today that counts. We will tackle tomorrow when it comes."
This certainly is an area to research, the rate of deforestation and how to alleviate it on these 'sky islands'. Sky islands are pockets of forests atop mountain tops. Disconnected forest outcrops where species become restricted and endemic.
Fig. 8. Top - River crossing. Left - Avelino tree crossing and Bibi scrambling the undergrowth. Right - View of a granite dome through the burnt down forest. Third line - Burnt forest. Bottom - Camp set up and a quick meal until we set off for the search.
No sooner that the tents were up, beds made, we had a delicious meal and off we went in search for amphibians and reptile. Night was falling and the chorus of frogs and insects were getting louder. Such a beautiful sound that replaces the television or music. Such a beautiful sound to work in. With our walking sticks we would 'scratch' at the leaves and rotting tree trunks and engage our eyes to spot any movement of scarpering animals. Early night for an early start tomorrow. The next three days consisted of a busy schedule. We would wake at 5am, have breakfast and head out to search. We would return, process and catalogue the specimens by collecting the location data, field observations and DNA for later barcoding analyses. The part I didn't know we'd be doing was the dispatching of the individuals by a slow, humane eutanisation and removing the liver for preservation in alcohol to preserve the DNA. The specimen was then preserved in formalin in a life-like positioning for ease of transportation. Yes, this was not expected and did make me sad so, if I could avoid doing it, I would. I kept telling myself that this will benefit the future generations and the protection of these forests.
This was the process throughout the expedition to later help us understand the biodiversity on these delicate and vanishing habitats.
Fig. 9. Top - The cycad forest on the ascent to the top of Mount Ribaué dome. Middle - The views from the top and Bottom - Night searches.
The highlight of the trip was Krystal finding a rare, un-named Ramforia chameleon. This is a dwarf chameleon roughly 6 - 10cm long which, Krystal the chameleon queen was on a mission to find. More is needed to analyse this species and work on ways to protect these only habitats they reside. Other chameleons from the genus Nadzikambia, were found to Krystals delight. Unfortunately we weren't successful in finding Arthroleptis francei however, we did hear a few calling but failed in locating them. Each day we searched, we walked, we climbed. The summit of the Ribaué Dome of 1600m asl. was climbed meandering through forest and then outcrops of cycads and aloes on the exposed granite rock. Once at the top, you had a panoramic of the mountain range amongst the flat subsistent farmlands and grass huts being dwarfed around you. We could see for miles but amongst the beauty was seeing the true extent of the devastation from a birds-eye perspective. This needs to end! Education is key but will prove a difficulty as this is deep set cultural practices that cannot be replaced by electricity due to the remoteness and cost.
Education is key but will prove a difficulty as this is deep set cultural practices that cannot be replaced by electricity due to the remoteness and cost.
Fig. 10. Top L & R - Ramforia sp. which is not yet named in science. Second line - Rubber frog (Phrynomantis bifasciatus), Third line - Tree frog (Leptopelis flavomaculatus), Bottom left - Giant African land snail, Bottom right - Nazikambia sp.
Within the forests are trees with a large DBH (diameter at breast height) of around 2m with large buttresses which provide shelter for critters or a capture of moisture. There were younger trees of different species in the undergrowth and shrubs so thick that you couldn't even walk through. Dried up temporary streams to flowing, lush streams flowed providing us with a pure water source and the pools became our bathing spots. Despite the heat, the water was freezing yet refreshing to dunk into after a long, hot day (Fig. 11).
After a brief 3 days, it was time to pack up and descend, head to the next town of Gurué and find a B&B to scrub up and head to the next mountain nearby, Mount Inago. We gave the porters a big thank you, their pay and then a football to the children who were so excited.
Through research on Mount Ribaué, there is now a protection on it and should any trees be cut down, offenders will receive a 2yr imprisonment and a US$700 fine. Two people had recently been caught by the police who patrol regularly.
Mount Inago
Dad, Dave, Avelino and I headed out to the closest village to arrange porters for the next day. After getting some vital supplies and kapulanas (traditional African print material used for clothing, baby wraps and more), we had an early night in preparation for our mammoth hike.
After a 2hr drive, we made it back to the village to see all the porters waiting. A brief organisation and off the porters went with us far behind. What a hard climb with many steep ups and a few downs. We walked through many mashambas, mainly maize, which is part of the staple in the diet here. It again was a very exposed walk with barely any fragments of forest for shade. We were surrounded by fallen, burnt trees all around us. Some were still smoking and emitting heat. This compiled with the heat reflecting from the ground and from the sun, we were boiling and melting. A small video I took of part of the journey - Deforestation. Welcomed pockets of miombo provided a pit stop with shade, a cool breeze and a refuel. Again, after over 4hrs we thought we had reached base camp where the team had camped only 1.5yrs prior, but we couldn't be more wrong! It had gone! Freshly chopped down, barren, cultivated land between the large remains of once 100yr old trees. The very tree the rare Nadzikambia was was first collected was no longer, only a burnt stump. Tears ran down faces. We sat on fallen charcoaled trees whilst we stared at the devastation before us. Our hearts were heavy, but this is why our research is so important as we need to discover the diversity and lobby the government.
Dave went ahead to scout out a new camp with the porters who just didn't understand our sadness. After another 30min walk we finally hit base camp which was at 1295m asl. The land was flat here amongst the open forest with a beautiful flowing stream bordering camp. Again, it was our water and bathing source. Sadly we were not far from the sound of machetes and the sight of a trickle of smoke rising into the open sky. This was happening only 50m or so away from camp where a patch of forest that was being cleared for a new mashamba. The sound of a tree trunk cracking and then a major thud follows machete sounds, then the screams of samango monkeys whilst they scarper in fright. Villager laughs and shouts echoed through the forest in celebration.
The very tree the rare Nadzikambia was first collected was no longer. Only a burnt stump remains.
After a rest and a freezing bath, off we went in search of specimens. We saw Nadzikambi and Ramforia chameleons, egg eating snake (Desipeltus sp.), frogs - Striped reed frog (Hyperolius substriatus), Mozambican rain frog (Breviceps mossambicus), Tree frog (Leptopelis flavomaculatus) and then a Melanoceps which is a caecilian. We were surrounded by cricket sounds BUT don't be fooled! They are mainly the calls from the small Arthroleptis xenodactylus. We saw baboons and a troop of rare samango monkeys which was a treat.
Fig. 17. Top L. - Ramforia sp. with beautiful dew drops. Top R. - Redd frog (Hyperolius substriatus), Second line L. - Egg eating snake (Desipeltus sp.). Second line R. - Caecilian (Melanoceps sp.). Third line L. - Reed frog (Hyperolius substriatus), Third line R. - Amazing caterpillar. Bottom two lines are of fungi and the one beautiful pool.
The one day we made it to the top of the accessible dome at an elevation of 1600m asl. (-15.159449, 37.432888). The forest was very thin at the peak, thorny, dry and grassy. Whilst walking through I disturbed two fruit bats who flew off. Later we saw yellow baboons fighting and silver cheeked hornbills with majestic casks flying over head. Such large and beautiful birds. Another treat to see as larger mammals (referring to being larger than a rat) are quite a rare sight here. They have mostly been hunted out or the habitat is now too small to thrive in. It is mostly the former. On the descent, thunder was threatening so we had to speed it up as being caught in torrential rain on steep slope poses many dangers and adrenalin rushes.
The rains came and lasted days. The stream deepened and widened but we were safe albeit a tad damp when out searching. The rains brought out the reed frogs (Hyperolius substriatus). They were everywhere! One would jump on your leg, others were on the kitchen table, on your mugs, head, bags, wherever you looked there was one sitting or hopping by. They are really cute frogs and all with a slight degree of differentiation in their markings. Throughout the rains, Bibi and I would keep searching for A. francei as it was imperative to my research and to science. Through sheer determination, hours of searching and tuning your ear into the calls from males, we were in luck. It was this mountain where we were fruitful in finding A. francei candidate species. I say 'candidate' as only through a DNA analysis, we will confidently know if these are a new species or if they are actually A. francei. Questions are asked in my head of everything: Where do the Hyperolius go during the day? Where are the female A. francei as we only ever see the males calling atop leaves on lower vegetation? Why are all the A. francei different colours and patterns? Wish I had more time to solely focus on the ecology of A. francei.
Fig. 19. Various colour morphs of some of the collected A. francei. Bottom R. gives you an idea of their size.
Nightly, we would return from searching and have a night cap around the fire, be it whisky, amarula or brandy. We would chat, plan the next day or tell stories. Night times were freezing so never be fooled by the high daytime temperatures as at higher elevations, sheltered by the forest, temperatures get cold. The fire in the morning was a welcomed treat.
Mornings, after breakfast would involve processing specimens, learning, note taking and photographing before heading out. Even on our last day before descending back to the car for our long journey back home.
Field work takes a lot of planning and preparation. It is certainly is not for the feint hearted or the unprepared. Fitness levels need to be good and your packing skills need to be spot on. Pack wise. Pack light and be minimalistic. Don't care about re-wearing your clothing as you would rather have a slight smell than suffer with carrying all that weight! Go with people who can speak the local language. Ensure you have the right permits and are following the research rules within that country. Plan for disruptions ie. vehicle breakdowns, inaccessible land, lack of porters, weather and more. Just do what you can.
I want to thank the whole team in making this possible. It certainly was a journey of a lifetime and ignited a passion to further research this delicate, last remaining pockets of forest in Mozambique. I hope that my thesis can be published and coupled with all the other research that has been done here to protect these mountains.
Here is my un-marked but recently submitted Masters Thesis:
nasaste <3
コメント