Deep in the heart of Tanzania’s Udzungwa Mountains, a trio of Rice University researchers, including ecophysiologist Andrea Rummel, graduate student Annie Finneran and junior Caroline Pollan, embarked on an ambitious summer field study to understand how human impacts are reshaping forest ecosystems. Armed with bat detectors, camera traps, soil sampling kits and a passion for ecological discovery, they worked alongside Tanzanian scientists to track the interplay between biodiversity, conservation and nutrient cycling in one of Africa’s most biologically rich yet vulnerable landscap
