Smithsonian scientists show differing patterns of rainforest biodiversity
... Most previous research has focused on diversity hot spots, such as upland rainforests in the foothills of the Andes, where steep gradients in elevation, temperature, rainfall a...Smithsonian's National Zoo researchers use electronic eggs to help save threatened species
... The telemetric egg, placed in the nest after the mother has laid her eggs, contains sensors that record temperatures on four quadrants of the eggs surface as well as in the eggs interior. Motion detectors record how freque...Smithsonian Fragmentation Project threatened by Amazon Colonization Plan
The Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project, one of the most important long-term research efforts in the Amazon, is imperiled by new colonization proposed by the Brazilian federal agency SUFRAMA, according to a commentary in the July 26, 2007 journal Nature, co-authored by William Laurance of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and Regina Luizo of Brazils National Insti...Smithsonian scientists connect climate change, origins of agriculture in Mexico
New charcoal and plant microfossil evidence from Mexicos Central Balsas valley links a pivotal cultural shift, crop domestication in the New World, to local and regional environmental history. Agriculture in the Balsas valley originated and diversified during the warm, wet, postglacial period following the much cooler and drier climate in the final phases of the last ice age. A significant dry p...Drought limits tropical plant distributions, scientists at the Smithsonian report
Drought tolerance is a critical determinant of tropical plant distributions, researchers working at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama report in the journal Nature, May 3. In a novel coupling of experimental measurements and observed plant distributions across a tropical landscape, drought tolerance predicted plant distributions at both local and regional scales. This mechani...Smithsonian hosts Polar Science Symposium to celebrate International Polar Year 2007-2008
... The symposium, which is also supported by the National Science Foundation, will present research findings by Smithsonian scholars and their collaborators from Arctic and Antarct...Crane hatching marks a first for Smithsonian's National Zoo
... ... "This is a great milestone for the Smithsonian's National Zoo and for this species," says Paul Tomassoni, the Zoo's curator of birds. Destruction of its native wetland habitat in south-central Africa has dramatica...Smithsonian-led Amazon research team wins scientific prize
A research team led by William Laurance, staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, will be honored for their "Outstanding Paper in Landscape Ecology" by the International Association of Landscape Ecologists in Tucson, Ariz. April 12. Co-author Susan G. Laurance will accept the award on the teams behalf.... The paper, entitled "Rapid decay of tree-community compos...Smithsonian study concludes Caribbean extinctions occurred 2M years after apparent cause
Smithsonian scientists and colleagues report a new study that may shake up the way paleontologists think about how environmental change shapes life on Earth. The researchers summarized the environmental, ecological and evolutionary consequences for Caribbean shallow-water marine communities when the Isthmus of Panama was formed. They concluded that extinctions resulting when one ocean became two...Smithsonian scientists report new carbon dioxide study
Researchers at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center report the...results of a six-year experiment in which doubling the atmospheric...greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) in a scrub oak ecosystem caused a...reduction in carbon storage in the soil. ...... The scientists said these findings add a new perspective on the capacity...of Earth's soils to store carbon, and a measure of caution s...Smithsonian scientists discover new marine species in eastern Pacific
..... Smithsonian scientists have discovered a biodiversity bounty in the Eastern Pacificapproximately 50 percent of the organisms found in some groups are new to science. The research team spent 11 days in the Eastern Pacific, a unique, understudied region off the coast of Panama. ... Coordinated by Rachel Collin of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, a team of Smithsonian scientists...Smithsonian scientists report ancient chili pepper history
... ... When Europeans arrived in the Americas, chili peppers were among...Smithsonian receives $8M HSBC grant
The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) today received an $8 million grant from HSBC to fund the world's largest field experiment on the long-term effects of global change on forest dynamics. A new Global Earth Observatory system will compare climate change and forest carbon data from 17 countries around the world. ... Located in Panama, STRI is the only Smithsonian bureau based outsi...Smithsonian offers new tropical biodiversity data and tools on the Web
... s insect rearing records, Dr. Jo...Smithsonian to coordinate planning for Panama's Coiba National Park/World Heritage Site
On May 17th the United Nations Education, Science and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) signed a contract authorizing funding for the Smithsonian Institution to implement the project: "Promoting Marine Conservation in a World Heritage Site in the Tropical Eastern Pacific," --the revision and updating of the management plan for Panama's Coiba National Park and Special Marine Protection Zone. The pr...Smithsonian guide to the biodiverse marine environment of Panama's Bocas del Toro
Coral reefs, coastal rainforest, land-grab, industrial bananas and organic cacao, mangroves, tourist boom, eclectic cultural mix: A Caribbean Journal of Science special issue presents the first scientific overview of the marine environment in Bocas del Toro Province near Panama's border with Costa Rica. With color photographic guide to marine invertebrates--the volume, edited by Dr. Rachel Colli...