…the personalities of small mammals influence their choice of seeds. Earlier this year the team described how some deer mice, depending on their personality, were more likely than others to cache red oak, white pine and American beech nuts in ways that promoted germination.
In turn, the personality-specific foraging strategies of rodents changed when predators were around…
And land use alters these dynamics.
Asked to define the practical implications of his research, Dr. Mortelliti said, “Preserve a diversity of personalities.” There’s no one ideal personality; rather, different individuals perform different roles. Depending on circumstance — drought, natural disturbances, fluctuations in predator populations — different personality types may come to the fore. …
A study the following year revealed that a more natural forest, with a mix of habitats rather than the uniformity favored by most commercial logging, contained a greater diversity of personalities.
“This diversity of personality types is maintained in populations because it’s a good thing, just like genetic diversity is a good thing,” Dr. Brehm said.
Mortelliti, Alessio, and Allison M. Brehm. “Environmental Heterogeneity and Population Density Affect the Functional Diversity of Personality Traits in Small Mammal Populations.” Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 287, no. 1940 (December 9, 2020): 20201713. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.1713.
We show that the richness, divergence and evenness of personality traits in wild populations are linked to key characteristics of the environment such as vegetation heterogeneity and a fundamental demographic parameter: population density. Maintaining functional diversity is widely considered a key conservation outcome [67,68] and our study provides evidence to suggest that conservation practitioners should consider vegetation heterogeneity and population density as key factors associated with high diversity of behavioural phenotypes. (Mortelliti and Brehm, 2020, p. 7)
(dear mouse photo from New York Times, “Meet the Mice Who Make the Forest.)
A people-friendly community that chooses to be entirely without motor vehicles on land
I’m just back from a couple of weeks on Little Corn Island, a square mile of land fifty miles off the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua. It’d be a great sister city for my town of McCarthy, Alaska, and I recommend it to McCarthyites as a place to visit.
Little Corn has beaches, forests, a village on the leeward side, about 1200 residents who are mostly English-speaking creoles of mixed black heritage and Spanish-speaking mestizo people from Pacific Nicaragua, along with tourists who are mostly young and athletic snorkelers and divers staying in funky beach lodges on the breezy windward side. Although they use motorboats in the ocean, the community has decided to be entirely vehicle-free on shore: walking and bicycles only. There are paths, some paved, but no roads. “Mainstreet” is like a wide sidewalk.
A senior member of one of the local extended families told me that the elected island government made the motor vehicle-free decision with widespread support, though some younger people disagree. He said he’d been involved in lobbying through funding from Managua for paving the cross-island path to the windward tourist lodges and extending the electric line there from the village generator (operates noon-2am, when not broken), at the same time he supported keeping motor vehicles off the island. That position, pro-development with conditions to maintain quality of life for locals and unique attraction for visitors, of course reminds me of McCarthy.
Young man working at a tourist lodge, barefoot with iPod
Although on the average materially very poor, the people I met are in general the happiest, healthiest and most upbeat I have encountered. The brightness in their eyes is as unique as what I used to notice in some residents of the Alaska’s Wrangell Mountains decades ago. That’s recognizing that my stay on Little Corn was brief, communication limited by language differences, and there’s much about the culture that I don’t understand.
Downtown Little Corn Island
Access to Little Corn is by boat from Big Corn, which has roads, vehicles and an airport with prop-plane connections to Managua. Most passenger ferry service to Little Corn is by open pangas that make the crossing from Big Corn in about forty minutes, depending on conditions. Panga drivers can string a long piece of visqueen plastic along the side of the boat, for passengers to hold up to shield off wind-blown spray.
A relaxed meal at Hatty’s El Bosque restaurant
Recently, Little Corn has become a tourist destination. Most of the visitors I met are young people from North America or Europe traveling about the world inexpensively. Most of the lodging is in basic one-room cabins on or near the beach, though a few are more up-scale and a high-end ($300/night) version has opened on a secluded beach. Among other activities, that one hosts yoga retreats. In general, the basic lodges and restaurants are locally owned and the fancier ones, more efficient and clock-oriented, are foreign owned and operated. A meal in a locally-owned restaurant can take hours, including conversations among the guests and with the staff, which I enjoyed.
Other sources of income/sustenance I heard about talking with locals include commercial fishing, traveling globally as cruise ship staff, and subsistence on fish, fruit, cocoanuts, and other garden crops. Chickens are everywhere. Cattle graze on the uplands. I didn’t notice signs of hunger. Coming from the USA, the relative absence of overweight people on Little Corn and their erect posture was dramatic. I didn’t have much time on Big Corn, but heard from a friend that residents there are significantly heavier. Little Corn is different.
A man on Big Corn explained that he got most of his income from multi-month stints on a lobster boat crew. He said he got 10 cents/pound for lobster selling for $16/pound at Costco.
Land for sale
I noticed a number of affluent, new residences owned by expatriate foreigners, located in desirable locations with views and moderate breezes. One couple, who had moved from the US, kindly invited me into their home. I enjoyed helping with one of their projects, harvesting a piece of driftwood to be cut with their chainsaw mill for use in creative furniture construction. That reminded me of McCarthy. One person told me that in general locals see foreigners’ house construction as a positive source of jobs and not a problem, though limits are being placed on new businesses being established by outsiders. I’m not clear on the details of that.
My visit was a glimpse into an place that’s rapidly changing and unstable. Young children are playing everywhere, old people are infrequent, and so the population is evidently exploding. I don’t know to what extent that includes migration from the mainland. The beaches are rapidly eroding, with palm trees falling into the sea. I don’t know why. I went diving on the reef once, but didn’t return, because there were so few fish and the coral is algae-covered, I presume largely from overfishing. I heard that the local government had established a no-fishing zone encompassing the reef around the island, but had no means to enforce it when fishing boats came over from Big Corn. Depletion of the reef probably greatly affects the potential for tourism centered on snorkeling and diving. Tourism is quite new to the island, presumably rapidly changing, and I don’t know how the mix of local and foreign control is playing out. The island I experienced is clearly unsustainable.
Despite that and the material poverty, the evident joy, openness and self-confidence of most local people I met is impressive. I’m struck by the comparison with an American marine biologist, about thirty years old with a graduate degree, with whom I chatted at a beach restaurant. He was vacationing on his way back to the US for a break from studying sea turtles on Central American Pacific beaches. I found him cynical and depressed about what’s happening to the turtles and environmental decline. Here’s a person who has everything going for him, within the reality of the world: interesting, useful work with the possibility of doing some good; relatively vast material affluence and the ability to travel; youth and health. Yet I felt a deep unhappiness. All around him on Little Corn — I don’t think he recognized it, or the difference with himself — were people his age, living in the midst of that environmental condition, inescapably caught in its immediate consequences, uneducated, comparatively with nothing, yet happier, in an essential way I’d say more free. If he knew how to take responsibility for his own happiness, to see the possibility, what joy he could bring into the world, for himself and for those around him. And I suspect he’d be more successful in his conservation work, too.
What follows is my photo essay about the island, focusing mostly on the transportation/access aspects that make it interesting in conjunction with McCarthy and regarding the larger questions of the consequences of motor vehicles and the possibilities for conscious decisions about their use.
Uncrowded at high season, windward lodges are on the beach.
Downtown, in the village
Beach erosion:
Paths:
Mainstreet in the village. No motor vehicles on the island, none, never, by local community decision, even though they freely and competently use motorboats on the water.
Mainstreet downtown
Mainstreet downtown
Primary cross-island path, near junction with the path through downtown
On the path across the island to the windward beach & lodges
Path along the beach to the windward lodges
Breeze on the windward path
Rosa’s restaurant along the main cross-island path
Side path to Casa Iguana lodge, near junction at Rosa’s
Combination ramp/stairway on the cross-island path, for freight carts, bicycles and pedestrians
Residential neighborhood
Residential neighborhood, with powerlines from the generator that runs noon-5am, unless broken
Pathway to the baseball field, cell tower & north beaches/lodges
On the path to Ensueos lodge
Pathway at Casa Iguana
Traffic:
I wonder if some of these kids have ever seen a car, truck or motorcycle.
Visitors
Teenagers hanging out
Freighting:
Pangas (passenger ferries) depart for Big Corn, while the weekly supply boat unloads
Almost everything comes in on the weekly supply boat
Gerardo Tinico delivering supplies to Casa Iguana
Carrying eggs
Work animal
Islanders are familiar with & capable of using motors on the water, though not allowing them on land.
North side lodges are accessed by boat as well as pathways
Moving supplies from the beach to the upscale resort Yemaya
Businesses:
One of several small lodges on the windward beach
Downtown
Foreign-owned tourist hangout
Phone company
Iguana lodge entry
Volleyball court at Iguana lodge
Store
Upscale Yemaya lodge hosts yoga retreats.
El Bosque (“the forest”) restaurant on the main path across the island
Eating at El Bosque
Owner/operators of El Bosque restaurant
Hetty Catrall Padilla in the kitchen where she creates excellent meals
Barracuda dinner, with rice, vegetables, potatoes and salad
Fresh bread comes out of the oven during the early afternoon.
Pizza parlor
Bottle wall of the pizza parlor during the day
Bottle wall at night
New lodge under construction
Duct tape: Local stores are small, but they sell it..
Residences:
Path through the residential area of the old village
Neighborhood recycling station with residence behind
New houses owned by foreigners, located with breezes and views
Bruce & Mary Jane, from the US, live in this beautiful home they built along the windward beach.
An ongoing inquiry into change, stability and connecton, by Ben Shaine
Living on Unstable Ground 