Science blog – July 2025

This month, at Cloudbridge we’re shining the spotlight on Jeremy Madden, one of our returning interns at Cloudbridge Nature Reserve. We absolutely love when past interns come back to continue their research, and Jeremy’s story is a perfect example of how a passion for conservation can evolve into deep, meaningful scientific work.

Jeremy first came to Cloudbridge last year with an interest in studying something related to climate change. What he found in our forest canopy was a world few people notice—epiphytic bromeliads, remarkable plants that live suspended in the trees and are closely tied to the forest’s unique microclimate.

By Jeremy Madden:

When I first arrived at Cloudbridge, I knew I wanted to study something connected to climate change. I was immediately drawn to the epiphytic bromeliads—plants that don’t grow in soil but instead attach themselves to tree branches and thrive off humidity, mist, and filtered light. Because they rely on very specific conditions, they’re incredibly sensitive to environmental changes and can serve as natural indicators of climate shifts.

My original idea was to use niche modeling to predict how certain bromeliad species might respond to climate change. But I quickly hit a wall: identifying bromeliads to the species level was nearly impossible. The only available resources were outdated field guides with vague descriptions and a few drawings—some of which incorrectly stated where certain species should occur. For example, one was described as growing only at low elevations, yet I found it thriving at the highest points of the reserve.

So I pivoted. I decided to build a bromeliad database, collecting visual and environmental data to map where these plants actually occur in Cloudbridge. Over the course of the project, I documented around 2,300 individual bromeliads, noting their elevation, forest type, trail location, and taking detailed photos of each one. It became one of the largest datasets of its kind for the region—and a foundation for future research.

As I neared the end of that project, I came across a paper that fascinated me. It described how bromeliads can act as entire ecosystems, with their leaf “tanks”—called phytotelmata—holding rainwater, leaf litter, and even living organisms. Inside these tiny aquatic habitats, I learned, are entire food webs: decomposers, algae, insects, and sometimes even frogs. One plant, one world.

What really caught my attention was how little is known about these ecosystems in cloud forests. Most research has been done in lowland Brazil, not in high-elevation sites like Cloudbridge. That raised a whole new set of questions:

• What kinds of tiny creatures are living in the phytotelmata here?

• How do these communities compare to those in warmer, lower forests?

• Could these differences reveal how elevation and climate shape miniature ecosystems?

Those questions are what brought me back to Cloudbridge. This time, I’m focusing on the microinvertebrates living inside bromeliads—exploring how these tiny, hidden worlds work in a cloud forest, and what they can tell us about life, adaptation, and resilience.

We’re excited to follow Jeremy’s journey as he dives deeper (literally!) into the world of bromeliads and the life they support. His story reminds us that even the smallest corners of the forest can hold discoveries waiting to be made.

You can check out Jeremy’s original project report in our website, with the name ” Environmental Drivers for the Distribution of Epiphytic Bromeliads in a Tropical Montane Cloud Forest.“