Participate
Participate
We offer short-term courses in field biology and genetics at locations around the world, and in-depth researcher training programs in the Peruvian Amazon, typically between May and August.
2024 RESEARCH ASSISTANTSHIP PROGRAM
Our primate behavior program involves working with 11 free-ranging populations of Neotropical primates, and in particular the emperor and saddleback tamarins, at the Los Amigos Biological Field Station in Southeastern Peru. You would be joining an established primate research program, ongoing since 2009. The primary tasks in this position will be to:
- Conduct daily behavioral follows of several groups, typically with one radio collared individual.
- Scan sampling of behavior at fixed intervals.
- Marking and collection of fruits from feeding trees.
- Opportunistic collection of fecal samples.
- Recording of spontaneous reproductive behaviors such as mating and scent marking.
Movement data collected will be associated with forest structure parameters acquired by high density lidar imaging. Feeding behavior data and samples will be incorporated into a study on natural seed dispersal. Social behavior will be used for a long-term dataset on cooperative breeding behavior.
CAPTURE-SAMPLE-RELEASE
Our Wildlife Health Training Program for 2024 is held at the Los Amigos Biological Station in Southeastern Peru. Participants will rotate working with five hands-on sampling teams:
1.) Nonhuman Primates
2.) Birds
3.) Bats
4.) Small-Terrestrial Mammals
5.) Medium-Large Mammals
Participants work alongside experienced researchers and veterinary scientists to gain valuable field experience in one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots in the Peruvian Amazon. This program is for aspiring biologists, anthropologists, veterinarians and others interested in biodiversity conservation, genomics, field research, and the One Health approach. Students assist with data collection for active research projects, with the possibility of continued involvement beyond the program’s end.
The 6th Genomics in the Jungle program combines training in molecular research techniques with a real-time sampling effort from Amazonian fauna at the Los Amigos Conservation Hub that sits at the edge of a 300,000 hectare conservation concession of intact lowland tropical rainforest. The field station is equipped with an in-situ genetics laboratory, the Los Amigos Wildlife Conservation Laboratory. Course participants will assist experienced field biologists and geneticists in collecting samples and then carry out the full pipeline of DNA extraction, amplification, sequencing, and bioinformatic analysis for species identification and basic mitochondrial genome assembly.
Brief training is provided in biological sample collection from select vertebrate taxonomic groups – typically including amphibians, reptiles, birds, and/or small mammals – as well as eDNA sampling from still water sources such as oxbow lakes, palm swamps and nearby clay-licks. Samples collected in the beginning of the program serve as a basis for carrying out a full genetics pipeline consisting of DNA isolation, clean-up and quality assessment, amplification, sequence library preparation, Nanopore sequencing, and basic bioinformatic analysis. The participant to instructor ratio for the program is kept low to provide personalized support to participants and to reflect a small research team dynamic. This program is ideal for students, faculty and young professionals that will be straddling both field and laboratory work environments, and who are expected to carry out their own data analysis. By conducting the program in a remote, hyper-diverse forest environment we are able transition between collection, laboratory, and analysis activities relatively seamlessly, resolving challenges associated with collection or lab work as they appear – as is typical in the field and lab!
What’s it like to join us in the field?
