Cocha Cashu Biological Station

[2] The area is geographically diverse, consisting of grasslands bordering the Andes, gorges, and plains where climate is more variant and drier.

This is a nutrient-rich site, the soil consisting of silt and sand, and turnover along the riverbank occurs generally within 1000 years.

[1][3] Those areas which lie outside the path of the Rio Manu's meandering edges have vegetation much older than those closer to the river, but due to common treefall, the forest canopy is low.

However, unlike La Selva or BCI, Cocha Cashu is in an area minimally impacted by humans, surrounded by millions of hectares of virgin forest, and thus provides critical insights into the organisms and processes found in a healthy, natural tropical rainforest.

[5] Studies related to those done at Cocha Cashu has been conducted at nearby Pakitza, on the same bank of Rio Manu, 21 km ESE.

[8] It has been considered that this may be in some significant part due to the prevalence of strangler figs, which make up a high proportion of the taller trees embedded within the canopy.

[4] While the uncovering of the bird community dynamics of this area of the Amazon lagged behind other Amazonian sections, Cocha Cashu is considered a center of avian endemism (as identified by Haffer in 1985).

Mist-net sampling of the bird populations at the site began in 1973, and by 1990, data on 435 regularly occurring species had been collected.

It is thought, however, that the makeup herp communities might be very similar in Manu to that of other areas along the western Amazon Basin.

This makes Manu a good place to study how tropical species communities may have looked and functioned before the influx of humans and technology.

[8] While fairly comprehensive lists of mammalian diversity at Cocha Cashu exist,[6] most are over ten years old and may not be in line with current conditions.

[14] The Cocha Cashu Biological Station was established in the 1960s by German researchers studying black caiman.

[15] The remote, rustic station consists of a few thatched roofed buildings clustered in two small clearings, and a well-established network of trails into the forest.

[citation needed] The many hazards of the Amazonian rainforest are well-publicized, including piranhas, anacondas, caimans, jaguars, pumas, peccaries, electric eels, stingrays, numerous poisonous snakes, insects, scorpions, spiders, plants, and other dangers.

In the years since, a memorial in his name was established at the station, and more researchers and other visitors have chosen to use buckets or pumped water to bathe instead.