Hurricane Maria made landfall in the southeast of Puerto Rico and then traversed the island diagonally, causing widespread and lasting destruction.
The storm
It has been 14 months since Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017. The category 4 hurricane was the largest and most destructive to hit the island in the last 90 years. What was particularly destructive about this hurricane, other than its magnitude and strength, was that its path cut diagonally across the island, ensuring that from coast to coast nothing was left untouched.
Satellite imagery of when the lights went out in the brightest region of the Caribbean.
You have probably heard about the hurricane’s effect on humans: months of ensuing darkness, destroyed roads, houses leveled and roofs torn clean off, no fresh water, and significantly crippled infrastructure and public services leading to over 1,000 lives lost when it all was over.
I’ve been back to the island now twice since the hurricane, once in January of 2018 and once last week (November 2018).
Four months post-hurricane
The destruction to both urban and forest areas was jaw-dropping when I visited in January to help Kevin Aviles-Rodriguez (UMass Boston) launch a project on urban lizard recovery and natural selection following hurricanes. (Side note – this research has yielded some really intriguing results so far and I look forward to Kevin sharing those with us here at Anole Annals in the future!) On that trip, four months after the hurricane, I found the island in disrepair. Many people still had no power or clean water, stoplights and electrical lines dangled from their snapped poles island-wide, roofs were covered in blue tarps, and driving involved dodging car-eating potholes, downed power lines, and debris. Most stores and restaurants were closed and many roads were impassable.
A stand of trees on the west coast four months post-hurricane (near Rincón).
The trees left standing in urban areas were bare toothpicks. I’m told that immediately following the hurricane, the leaves looked like green snow coating the ground several inches thick. Most of the trees that survived were the large and common urban species: mango, flamboyán, ceiba–leafless but still rooted. When we visited the forests I was equally shocked by the destruction: trees looked as if someone clipped them all off clean around 15 feet up, the canopy was gone and all of the large trees like Cecropia and Cocoloba were downed. Lianas had taken over giving the forests a bushy, surreal appearance. I left the island that January wondering how long it would take to recover; the human side and nature side alike had a long road ahead of them.
What was once closed-canopy secondary forest on the north coast (near Arecibo).
Fourteen months post-hurricane
When I returned last week, now 14 months post-hurricane, I was pleasantly surprised to see the island was recovering. Roads had been repaired, power had been restored, stoplights were working, debris had been cleared, restaurants and stores were open, and houses rebuilt. From the human side of things, the island seemed to be recovering. On the west side of the island, the leaves of the large trees had returned. Forested areas had more dense understory than typical and the canopy was still fairly open, but overall it seemed like the forests and urban areas were both returning to normalcy. I found many urban lizards without a problem, including Anolis cristatellus, A. pulchellus, A. stratulus, Ameiva exsul and the non-native green iguana. I was surprised however, that the nights were eerily quiet. The familiar ear piercing chorus of coqui was reduced to intermittent calls of only a few individuals. The coqui don’t seem to have recovered quite as well as the anoles.
Many challenges certainly still face the residents of the island, but it was starting to look more like the Puerto Rico I knew. So it was quite a shock when I visited the newly re-opened El Yunque National Park. El Yunque was hit particularly hard by the hurricane as the first landfall was just south of the forest near Yabucoa. Strong bands of wind pummeled the area, leading to massive landslides that closed the rainforest for months. The national park website said that only La Coca falls and Yokahu Tower were open to visitors, but I found a park ranger who informed me that the Mt. Britton trail was open (and the road to the peak of El Yunque had been cleared as well, though not the cloud forest trail).
As I drove up the mountainside to the Mt. Britton trailhead I was shocked at how open the forest was. When we arrived at the trailhead, my jaw dropped. The canopy had not recovered at all. The palms seemed to be the only trees that survived. I’ve hiked this trail many times, but this was the first time I did not wear a long-sleeve shirt – it was hot and dry. Perhaps the lack of animals shouldn’t have come as a surprise then. I didn’t hear a single coqui call while hiking the trail, where in the past we would hear many different species along the route. I also did not see a single Anolis gundlachi, where before my favorite trick was to tell someone that I could make lizards appear on demand then reach out and snatch one off a tree – they were that common! I did see a handful of Anolis evermanni, but only a few. Below are a couple of before and after photos of the same portions of the trail.
The impacts of hurricanes on wildlife
Recent research has shown that the insect populations of El Yunque have been declining for years, and certainly hurricane Maria did not help this situation. Perhaps the anole and coqui populations have suffered because of a collapse of food resources? Or perhaps the microclimatic shifts were too much for the lizards to handle? Anolis gundlachi does have a strong affinity for cool and moist habitats and it seems quite likely that with the current state of El Yunque, very little suitable climatic habitat exists for this species. Or perhaps the hurricane itself reduced the anole populations. Recent research on Anolis scriptus found that hurricanes can pose strong selective pressures leading to phenotypic change. Whatever the reason for the apparent decline, I am eager to check back in with the lizards in a few months when I visit again and even more eager to hear about the research of those studying herpetofaunal hurricane recovery.
No A. gundlachi to be found at El Yunque 14 months after the hurricane, but quite a few A. evermanni like the one seen here.
Are you studying the effects of hurricanes on lizards? Are you studying the recovery of Puerto Rican herpetofauna after Maria? We would love to hear more about it! Let us know in the comments, or consider contributing a blog post to Anole Annals.
- Puerto Rico Herpetology Symposium - September 21, 2023
- Anole Symposium This Fall? - July 14, 2023
- Parallel Urban Adaptation from Phenotype to Genotype in Anolis Lizards - January 20, 2023
Leave a Reply