Projects for research assistants

Research Assistants on this project will be based on the research ship and will need to be prepared for the hot and humid conditions of the Amazonian rainforest. Whilst some respite can be found on the boat where the fan-cooled cabins and showers provide a comfortable retreat from the tough working conditions, the main reward is the opportunity to see and work with such a huge range of birds and animals, including the larger and rarer animals such as river dolphins, primates and caimans.

There is a large team of mainly Peruvian researchers based on the research ship with nine different research programmes running. Each night the various scientists write up on a whiteboard the timings for their projects and the volunteers they need for the following day to complete various research tasks. Research Assistants signing up for the various projects will help on all the projects over the course of their stay. There is a strong research atmosphere on the boat with teams coming and going at all times of day and night on various research tasks.

Research tasks which require volunteer manpower include: monitoring river turtle nesting sites and habitat selection by the yellow-spotted river turtle, spotlight surveys for caimans and diet studies of this species (which necessitates capture of the caimans through noosing), transect surveys for the abundant pink and grey river dolphins, mist netting surveys of the bird communities utilising the forest understorey, transect counts of river birds, point counts of macaws as indicators of levels of forest disturbance, gill net surveys of fish communities, standardised searching surveys to characterise the amphibian communities, land based transect counts of primates, large mammals and game birds as indicators of levels of exploitation and checking 20 camera traps run at a variety of habitats. In addition to these surveys there are dissertation studies where assistance may also be required - for example assisting with behavioural data observations on the primate species.