{"id":17217,"date":"2018-03-16T11:00:58","date_gmt":"2018-03-16T11:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/?p=17217"},"modified":"2018-03-20T14:42:36","modified_gmt":"2018-03-20T14:42:36","slug":"scientistatwork-snakes-bats-and-biodiversity-attacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/2018\/03\/16\/scientistatwork-snakes-bats-and-biodiversity-attacks\/","title":{"rendered":"#ScientistAtWork: Snakes, bats and biodiversity attacks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_3188smaller\"<\/a><\/h2>\n

Augusto Gomes underlines the value of perseverance as a tool for scientists, and of photography as a tool to teach the public<\/h2>\n

<\/p>\n

By Jack Leeming<\/p>\n

Ecologist Augusto Gomes is willing to wait for the right shot. This picture was taken underground in an ironstone cave<\/a>, at Espinha\u00e7o mountain range, in a northern region of Minas Gerais state, Brazil. The entire area is a hotspot for biological diversity. Getting there involved 14 hours of travel. Taking the right photograph took another four hours. It was sent to Naturejobs as part of the #ScientistAtWork<\/a> 2018 competition, which is open for entries until 31 March. You can find out more here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was not a simple photo at all,\u201d says Gomes, who grew up in Belo Horizonte, in the shadow of the southernmost point of the mountain range, and works at the Federal University of Minas Gerais.<\/p>\n

The cave is hot \u2014 around 30 degrees Celsius \u2014 flooded and steamy enough that Gomes had to take his camera back out at one point, held over his head and though a narrow passage, to avoid long term damage. That\u2019s what makes it such a great spot for the bats \u2014 two-to-three hundred \u2014 that fly around them. \u201cNormally there are thirty to one-hundred\u201d in any cave, Gomes says.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s cramped. \u201cWe have to squeeze in the mud,\u201d says Gomes. \u201cThey\u2019re not like limestone caves which you can walk through\u201d and where he has spent most of his time underground as an ecologist.<\/p>\n

Naturally, the cave is pitch-black. The light from this picture comes from other colleagues, who he says were kind enough to hold the lights for him for the four hours it took to take the photograph. To the left of Gomes\u2019 subject \u2014 undergraduate student Matheus Evaristo \u2014 \u201cthere is an extremely poisonous snake, which scared us a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, what made Gomes and his colleagues sit in a dark, wet, narrow, hot, snake-and-bat-filled cave for four hours, waiting for a perfect photograph? Astonishingly, it wasn\u2019t his PI \u2013 or even his research. Or, at least, it wasn\u2019t for his research alone. Instead, he wanted to communicate what he loves about his work to others.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to capture a moment that captures the feeling of a scientists being in a special place and discovering something\u201d he says, \u201cthe feeling of being in that moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

He hopes his image \u2014 and others he has taken \u2014 will have a positive effect on the way people see the world around them. \u201cFor me, it leaves a message for the reader of that photo,\u201d he says. \u201cI always think about conservation \u2014 of the mountains, of the caves, of the bats. How do I pass a message to people about these interesting environments, and the life inside them?\u201d<\/p>\n

Gomes sees science \u2014 as a public funded body \u2014 as something that the people have a right to be educated about. \u201cMany scientists are only interested in spreading results inside the scientific community,\u201d he says. \u201cThis kind of research doesn\u2019t reach society \u2014 they\u2019re the ones that need that research.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI see in photography a really useful tool to talk to society about biodiversity and the problems faced by our animals, by our plants, by our nature. Photography for me is a democratic tool \u2013 everyone can understand it.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Gomes\u2019 photo is an entry to the <\/em>#ScientistAtWork photo competition<\/em><\/a>. You can check out the competition <\/em>here<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Jack Leeming is the editor of Naturejobs.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Suggested posts<\/strong><\/p>\n

Photography: Science on camera<\/a><\/p>\n

Enter the Naturejobs #ScientistAtWork photo competition 2018<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ecologist Augusto Gomes is willing to wait for the right shot. This picture was taken underground in an ironstone cave, at Espinha\u00e7o mountain range, in a northern region of Minas Gerais state, Brazil. The entire area is a hotspot for biological diversity. Getting there involved 14 hours of travel. Taking the right photograph took another four hours. It was sent to Naturejobs as part of the #ScientistAtWork 2018 competition, which is open for entries until 31 March. You can find out more here.  Read more<\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":109647,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,1371],"tags":[6781145,5937193,10395921,5937197,7401587],"class_list":["post-17217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-2","category-competition-2","tag-scientistatwork","tag-naturejobs-photo-competition","tag-photo-competition","tag-photograph","tag-science-photography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/109647"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17217\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}