Two professors and researchers from the University of Montpellier in France, belonging to the Center D’ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive CNRS, are in Casanare, due to their leadership in the project “Los surales: from individual earthworms to landscape patterns in the Colombian wetlands”, in which the Environmental Biology program and the Biological Research Group of the Orinoquia of Unitrópico participate.
The international experts, emeritus professor Doyle Mckey and tenured professor Thibaud Decaëns, share with professors, students and graduates of Unitrópico, a field practice in different sites of Casanare that are located in the south, including the Flor de Verano farm in the village of Tiestal , Los Girasoles farm in the village of La Defensa, Morichal corregimiento in Yopal, Las Palmeras farm in Jagueyes de Guirripa, San Luis de Palenque.
In this way, the researchers carry out a reconnaissance that allows locating the project area to study the surales, a name given to the regularly spaced mounds of earth that represent a spectacular landscape in the floodplains of this region.
“The project consists of investigating the sural landscapes, which are important for the Orinoquia region and Venezuela. We, from Unitrópico, want to identify how the vegetation is part of these landscapes and how it may be interacting with the elements formed from surals such as earthworms and soils”, said the professor and researcher Luz Elena Suarez.
The recent visit is a preparatory mission to advance the execution of the project in the month of October, with the assistance of Environmental Biology students, who will make their contribution in research as a degree option.
This research alliance has been in progress since 2016, following the publication in the indexed journal Plos One of the scientific article entitled: The Surales, Self-Organized Earth-Mound Landscapes Made by Earthworms in a Seasonal Tropical Wetland. See article.
Source: Unitropic
