(Bro)meliads.

I never knew how thick and abundant the tropics were until we stepped foot into the deep forest of La Selva. I also never knew how funny it'd be. Kevin was the comedic relief of the group throughout the entire pursuit of bromeliads. As a whole (Angela mostly) we decided to spontaneously name ourselves the Bromeliads, emphasis on the "bro". The reason for the sweat, aching feet, and everything else we experienced was because we were in hot search (no pun intended) of biodiversity inside epiphytes, which are basically entire other worlds in spirit. One word: macro-invertebrates. These tiny creatures use the water collected from rainfall in bromeliads to their advantage, along with the nutrients from decomposed materials to create, in a sense, a micro-habitat. It's fascinating to take this information back to the lab and both dissect the plants and explore the fundamental reasoning as to why this is vital to the rainforest. A lot of work is ahead of us but it will get done in due time.