1. Sustainable Development Projects
University of Georgia, San Luis, Costa Rica
Christy Li and Jocelin Gregorio
Canopy Closure Measurement
Abstract: This internship focused on both the
engineering and research aspects of Sustainable
Development, Including: Biodigester experiment
and installation, canopy closure measurement,
butterfly conservation, bird window strike
project, and canopy closure measurement.
Bird Window Collision Project
Butterfly Conservation
Biodigester
Assisted in conducting biodigester experiment
by measuring methane productions.
Installed biodigester in a local farm.
A Bio- Methane Potential (BMP) test is
conducted to measure the efficiency of
methane production concerning different
organic solid mixtures. The goal of this
experiment is to determine if the addition of a
local bacterium to the mixture would increase
the methane production in anaerobic
digestion. Three sets of mixtures are set-up
for this experiment: the standard (organic
solid mix without the bacterium) group, the
control group, and the experimental group.
This is an ongoing research that still needs
more result on the biogas production and
methane concentration. As to date, the
experimental group produces visibly more
biogas than the standard group and the
control.
Acknowledgement: International Iacocca Internship Program, EI-STEPS, EES all providing funding. Thank you Bethany Loya, Phillip Dixon,
Martha Garro Cruz, Jose Montero, Don Morris, and University of Georgia, Costa Rica for providing the opportunities, support, and assistance for
the internship.
The Three-wattled Bell Bird
Corridor is an initiative in the
Monteverde region with a
mission to protect migratory
birds as they fly from the
Gulf of Nicoya up into the
mountain forests along the
continental divide. Our
primary focus in this project
was to Collected data on the
bird behaviors near windows
and bird strikes
One of the goals of
butterfly conservation in
UGA is to increase the
pool of genetic materials
for butterfly species.
Therefore, various
species of butterflies
were collected and
mounted on campus to
preserve the butterfly
DNA. Specifically, the
Greta oto (glass winged
butterfly) was collected
because it is a residential
butterfly species. This
genetic information is
stored such that it can be
used for scientific
purposes in the future.
In our project, we
measured the canopy
closure along UGA’s
campus trials and the
permanent reforested
plot using
densiometers.
Canopy Closure is an important measure to
evaluate the ecological succession of a forest.
It assesses the sky hemisphere covered by
vegetation using a single reference point. The
measurement is influenced by the tree
height, canopy widths, and the amount of
lights and other factors affecting the
understory habitat (Sierra Nevada Adaptive
Management Project).
It has a far range of uses from measuring
forest succession to determining forest
carbon sequester potential.
Table 1: Most of the canopy closure
percentages are between 70 to 95 percent
with a few exceptions of open forest
canopy with the trials or near the entrance
of the trials.