Our Malagasy PhD students Lalaina Ramiliarisona and Tsito (Richard) Randriatsitohaina had visited Mount Marojejy together with Agnes in March for an initial exploratory trip to understand species diversity, select study areas and start monitoring phenology. In July, during the Madagascar winter, Lalaina and Tsito returned to Marojejy, camping high up in the cloud forest under continuous rain and temperatures below 10 °C. Besides the unpleasant weather, they could report that none of the Melastomtaceae species we had found in March was flowering in July, a pattern we had expected, but which needed empirical verification. In early October, Lalaina and Tsito returned to Marojejy for the third time, accompanied by Andrea Errante and Gregor Traun from the University of Vienna, as well as our engaging and highly motivated local guide Ris, who counts with 20 years of experience as a research assistant in ecological and conservation projects (like lemur conservation). Fieldwork in Mount Marojejy is the most challenging because the entire gradient can only be reached by foot, there is no electricity in the field to recharge camera batteries or freeze samples and accommodation is in tents. Because Lalaina and Tsito had experienced severe rains in Marojejy before, they advised us to bring additional tarps to shelter tents, as well as a shovel to dig trenches for better water runoff. We, on our end, stocked up on rechargeable camera batteries which would be recharged whenever the team leaves the forest, and adapted the whole MountBuzz protocol to work without electricity and freezers for bee or pollen storage. Before heading to the field, the team – now experienced in the field cuisine – did a great job buying all necessary food supplies for ten days in the forest – more than 100 cups of rice, 60 cups of beans, vegetables, coffee, sugar, tea… we are lucky that local porters are ready to help in Marojejy, carrying all equipment, food, tents and personal bags up the mountain for us – they always leave hours after us, but arrive hours before us! Another big contrast – as European scientists, we are told to wear high boots and long pants and long sleeve shirts and use tons of mosquito repellent – locals walk barefoot in shorts and shirts and are just fine 🙂

When entering the forest and making our way up the mountain, the classical MountBuzz pattern seemed to haunt us – sterile or fruiting plants… this had been expected to some extent because peak flowering in Marojejy supposedly happens in November and December, but we wanted to have a head-start in case phenological patterns change (the worst a pollination biologist can find in the field are fresh fruits…). And indeed, in the higher elevation cloud forests, we were not disappointed, as several species of the beautiful genus Medinilla had already started flowering! After some exploration, we could also successfully launch the first phase of data collection for MountBuzz in Madagascar, putting up video cameras, waiting in front of flowers to catch bees, performing manual pollination experiments and monitoring of floral longevity. The pollinator observations in Madagascar will be particularly interesting because to our knowledge, there are only five pollination studies for Melastomataceae for all of Africa – with approximately 500 Melastomataceae species on the continent, and 500 on Madagascar. Given that Marojejy also is a destination for nature-enthusiastic tourists, and that Madagascar is suffering a continued high rate of deforestation, one of our project aims with Lalaina and Tsito also is to prepare little leaflets about Melastomataceae, their pollination, and the importance of plant-pollinator interactions for the maintenance of biodiversity and human well-being in both Malagasy and English, to share our results more broadly. Stay tuned for those leaflets!