The Association for Tropical Biology

Last week, we were in San Jose for the annual meeting of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC). It happens to be the 50th anniversary of both ATBC and of OTS (the Organization for Tropical Studies, or in spanish OET, la Organizacion para Estudios Tropicales). It was quite interesting being at a 50th anniversary meeting because everyone was in a very nostalgic mood, and I got to hear a lot of fun stories about 'the good ole days'.

One of the people I was most looking forward to meeting (but alas, it did not pan out) is Mary Jane West-Eberhard. She is one of the foremost authorities in wasp social behaviors and is also a really kick ass female biologist, who has lived in Central America most of her life. She works in both Costa Rica and in Panama. On the historical panel a few days ago, she shared a very interesting story about how she started out in biology in the early 60s.

Field biology, especially in the tropics, is very different today than it was in 1964. Back then, most work was done in a very exploratory way, on a series of expeditions. It was true exploration, working in very new and (literally) uncharted territory. A far cry from our air conditioned lab and high speed internet situation at La Selva today.  Mary Jane was a grad student and interested in traveling to the tropics, but since the only women allowed to go were the wives of expedition members, she was hard pressed to get herself invited. One day, a student she'd tutored mentioned that he was looking for biologists to visit his home country of Colombia, and invited her to live in Colombia and do research there.

She packed everything (but the kitchen sink) for her trip to Colombia - from 50 pound machines to measure temperature and humidity, to a little black dress for social outings. (Just for comparison's sake, the 50 pound thermo-barometer she used has been replaced by tiny dime-sized iButtons.) Apparently the little black dress got used only once- for a funeral and alas, not for a date.

One of the most interesting proofs of the gender differences of the time was the fact that women weren't allowed to wear trousers in public. Poor Mary Jane, who would take the bus to her field sites everyday, had to wear a skirt or dress on the bus, change into her field clothes for work, and then back into a ladylike froc for the ride home. She also wasn't allowed to have a backpack (how unfeminine!) so she used a giant straw purse to carry all of her field gear.

I must say, I sure am glad that times have changed!