This summer, 16 students traveled to Costa Rica for Trinity’s Costa Rican Ecology program. Middle America, the region extending from central Mexico to Colombia, is one of the most biologically diverse regions of the world with a high degree of endemism (species found nowhere else). This diversity and endemism have resulted from a complex tectonic and climatic history that has promoted the evolution of different species in the region. Through the ecology program, Trinity students explored this biodiversity across different ecoregions of Costa Rica, focusing on the diversity and abundance of small to medium-sized mammals at elevations ranging from sea-level rainforests and dry forests to high-elevation cloud forests. The students began by studying rainforest ecology at the Osa Peninsula. They then transitioned up the coast of Costa Rica to sea-level dry forests and the highlands of the Monteverde area to study the biodiversity on both the Pacific and Caribbean sides of the Tilaran moun...